There Is A Method to the Madness
This is a podcast where I will be discussing all aspects of physical fitness. I am an exercise physiologist and personal trainer and owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs for the last 25 years. My passion is health and fitness and I am excited to share my views, some stories, interviews and much more with you.
There Is A Method to the Madness
Stretch for Health: Why Flexibility Matters
Welcome to the Fit, Healthy and Happy Podcast hosted by Josh and Kyle from Colossus...
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Welcome to there is a Method to the Madness. My name is Rob Maxwell and I'm an exercise physiologist and personal trainer. I am the owner of Maxwell's Fitness Programs and I've been in business since 1994. The purpose of this podcast is to get to the real deal of what really works and, most importantly, why things work. Hence the name there is a Method to the Madness. Before I get started today, let me thank Jonathan and Lynn Gilden of the Gilden Group Realty Pros. They are committed to providing the highest level of customer service in home sales. Why don't you give them a shout and figure out what your home is worth? 386-451-2412. 886-451-2412. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon.
Speaker 1:Whenever you are listening to this, this is Coach Rob here, and today I'm going to talk about flexibility and mobility. This is a subject that we haven't talked a lot about on the podcast. I think it's kind of like one of the forgotten about health and fitness components. But it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be neglected. So hopefully I do it justice today and even though I haven't talked a ton about it, when I look back over the previous episodes you know, let's really make up for that by at least hoping that you understand a lot more about flexibility, mobility, what it is and what you need to do to improve it. So let me back up just a second and repeat what I said about the health components of physical fitness. Flexibility is one of the five health components of physical fitness. The other four are cardiovascular health, body composition, muscular strength and muscular endurance, and then flexibility. Those are the five health components to physical fitness, and there are six performance components to physical fitness, but I'm not going to go in that direction, so don't worry, I'm not going to list those right now, because the important thing is to understand what these are. They're the health components, because they are the parts of physical fitness that impact your physical health. That's why they're the health components to physical fitness. I think it's pretty obvious to everybody that body composition impacts your health. Cardiovascular fitness impacts your health, muscular strength and muscular endurance impacts your health. Cardiovascular fitness impacts your health, muscular strength and muscular endurance impacts your health, and flexibility and mobility impact your health, because if we're not mobile, we're not getting around very well, and if we aren't getting around very well, chances are we're not going to be very healthy. And if we're not very flexible, we're also not getting around very well and we're also more likely to pull muscles and have some other soft tissue issues which will affect our health. So we really need to be working on all of these components not just one or two, but all of them to be as physically fit as we can be.
Speaker 1:Now let me give you the difference between mobility and flexibility. So a lot of times people think of these two things as the same thing, but they're different. And when clients come in and they talk about that, they hear they need to improve their flexibility and a lot of times it's that like they hear that but they're not really sure why they're being told that or maybe if they're even talking about flexibility. But a lot of times when they say that and I ask them to kind of elaborate a little bit more they're really talking more about mobility versus flexibility. Now, both are important and let me tell you what they are.
Speaker 1:So mobility is your ability to get around, your ability to bend, your ability to go through a full range of motion or at least a normal range of motion in your daily activities. That's mobility. So the inability to say, get out of a chair comfortably, like maybe the chair is low to the ground or maybe your car is low to the ground, because you're driving around in a really cool sports car or something that's super low to the ground. That's great, until you started realizing you have some mobility issues and getting in and out of the car becomes a challenge. That's not really flexibility. Sometimes people will say, oh, I'm not very flexible, I can't really get down on the ground anymore. Well, that's mobility or strength. But in many cases they're talking about mobility issues. When they bend their joints, when they flex their joints in certain directions, then they have pain, they have discomfort or they just have fusion like it doesn't move. That's a mobility issue, all right.
Speaker 1:So your ability to bend at the joint, your ability to go through a full range of motion or to get down into a chair and out of a chair, or get down onto the floor and get up from the floor, that's not flexibility issues. Flexibility could be a part of it, but that's a mobility issue Now. A flexibility issue or flexibility is the point to where your muscles can stretch completely through a full range of pain, free motion. So that's a little bit different. Flexibility can impact mobility, but it's not really a flexibility issue now. So flexibility is important. It's important for a number of reasons. But it's important because being flexible to an extent you don't want to be hyper flexible, and I'm going to get into that here and a flexible muscle is less prone to injury and that is important. A flexible muscle allows you to have more full range of motion and full mobility. But it isn't mobility.
Speaker 1:So when our muscles are inflexible, that means that the muscles are shortened. So your muscle fibers when they contract, they shorten. That's what we call a concentric contraction. When the muscle fiber contracts, it is literally shortening. If you can watch me, I kind of always do that with my hands and fingers because I'm always trying to explain when I was teaching, or just to clients when I still teach, what that looks like. But the muscle fibers literally shorten. So if you take your index finger and your thumb and you bring them together in a shortening motion, that's what your muscles fibers do. When they contract, that shortens. Now when they habitually shorten and don't return back to a normal full range of motion, that's when we call an inflexible muscle. So an inflexible muscle group comes from many, many, many, many, many inflexible muscle fibers and part of it's genetic I mean part of it is we're. Just some people are more flexible than others. So part of it is genetic like how long are your muscle bellies and how short are your tendons are going to be maybe more inflexible, because those muscles have the capacity to grow. They have the capacity to get bigger, go through hypertrophy. People that have, say, shorter muscle bellies and longer tendons tend to be a little more flexible. So there is a correlation between muscle mass and flexibility because as you're gaining muscle size, as you are going through hypertrophy, your muscle fibers are shortening to an extent.
Speaker 1:Now, having said that, the muscle-bound myth isn't true. So just because you are getting more muscular, it doesn't mean that you are losing that flexibility and you can't move anymore. You know, like they used to say oh, he's just kind of an inflexible oaf, oaf, he is muscle bound, or she is muscle bound. Well, that's not necessarily true. There are plenty of very, very muscular men and women that are also flexible. It just means that you have to, or they have to, stretch. If they are stretching those muscles, then they're not going to get muscle balance. So just because you are adding muscle doesn't mean you're becoming more inflexible. That is not true. But it does mean that the more muscle you add, you still have to pay attention to that flexibility, all right.
Speaker 1:So, in short, regarding genetics, part of it is genetic how flexible we can get. There are some people that can just naturally palm the floor with their legs straight and there are some people that, no matter how hard they work at it, they can never touch the floor, touch their toes. I mean, we can all improve I say that all the time with every aspect of fitness. We can all improve. But we do have to understand that, just like every other aspect of fitness, there is going to be a genetic predisposition of just how flexible you can get, and you have to understand that we don't necessarily have to get beyond good or above average flexibility.
Speaker 1:Beyond good or above average flexibility, there is no studies that show that the person that is hyper flexible or hyper mobile, the person that can, like, do crazy things, like put their feet out and, you know, spread their legs eight inches or so and then be able to put their nose on the floor, you know that kind of like insane looking flexibility there is absolutely no evidence that shows that those people get injured less. In fact, people that are hyperflexible tend to get injured more because they have a weakness, oftentimes in those muscles. So really it's like many things, it's about just getting good and not perfect or good not the best. So that is the case with flexibility. So it is important to have because, again, it's just very simple the more the flexible the muscle is, the less likely it is to get injured, unless again we're getting into that super, super, hyper flexible mode, which is typically a genetic thing. But you know, I don't think too many people have to worry about that and then being more flexible will help you recover and it will assist you in your mobility. So for me, that's an area that I struggle with in some of my muscle groups.
Speaker 1:It's kind of funny, like my hamstrings are actually pretty flexible because I continue to stretch them for many, many, many years, I think, just honestly, to be, you know, truthful, just because it was convenient and when clients were stretching their hamstrings, I would stretch my hamstrings. Now there was a time when I had pretty darn flexible quadriceps, like I could easily pull my heel back into my buttocks as I stretched. And then, like through the years, I just started neglecting that and I didn't really do it. And now I'm back to really working on it and I was very proud of myself Like it was either. Uh well, it was the last part of last week. I um showed Ellen, I said, hey, look, I'm able to pull my left heel back into my buttocks, like I was able to get it all the way up and like I don't know, just a couple of months ago I was like three, four inches away. So I was proud of that because I really started to get back into stretching my quads. Now I tell these stories because hopefully it will help you.
Speaker 1:So, number one why did I do that? Was I getting injured? No, I noticed that when I ran, when I looked at pictures, when I looked at video, I could see that I was not lifting my leg. I was not really lifting my leg in the back on flexion, it was. Basically I was shuffling. You know they call that that old man shuffle Like I'm looking at that going well, geez, you know that's not good. You know my legs are really not going through a good rotation when I run.
Speaker 1:And then I realized I'm like, well, let me, you know, stretch, let's see what's going on with this. And I realized, man, my quads had gotten so tight over the years that I had trouble kicking my foot up to my hand to even pull it back into a quad stretch. Now why did it get that way? Very simple, we use it or lose it. I didn't stretch. You know that could be an uncomfortable thing. You know that could be an uncomfortable thing. So if I'm realizing that my foot isn't just kicking up into my hand like it used to, I'm like, yeah, I just don't do it because I didn't see the priority of it and then I let it go. And I let it go. I continued to stretch my calves because we have a slant board and so I would get on that and kind of zone out for a few minutes and stretch my calves.
Speaker 1:As I already stated, I was stretching my hamstrings because clients were stretching the hamstrings. And a little caveat to that the reason why that is is because 80% of the population has back issues and one of the correlates to back pain is tight hamstrings. The other correlate is weak erector spinae muscles. The other correlate is weak erector spinae muscles. I meant to say spinal erectors, but erector spinae muscle being weak, and then tight hamstrings are the two correlates of back injury other than fluke injury. So I have clients typically stretch their hamstrings because I don't want them to get any kind of back problems, so that's why. So I will do that with them.
Speaker 1:And so my hamstring stayed pretty nice and flexible, but my quads got neglected. So now that I'm back to it, then I'm starting to show progress again. I'm able to, as I said already, closely get my heel into my butt on my left side. On my right side I'm still about an inch away. So I got some work to do, but I realize I need to do it because I want to improve my mobility and, as I said, flexibility is a part of mobility. All right, so now let's just talk about different ways we can do that. So let's go back to mobility.
Speaker 1:It's very important that when we strength train, we go through a full range of motion for the joint, because that is what is going to increase mobility. So if you want to be able to get out of a low chair when you sit, or your low Maserati, or your 300Z or whatever it is you're driving around in, or your Porsche if you're one of my clients who races his Porsche around, you know if you want to be able to get down on that bad boy which is almost on the ground and get back out, that's a mobility issue, and so when we strength train we have to go through a full range of motion. So a lot of times we'll see people squat and they're not going all the way down. Now we don't have to go ass to grass, like some of the other fitness organizations suggest. You know, some of the competitive fitness organizations suggest no, you don't have to do that, but we do have to get down to parallel, keeping our back straight and good alignment, because that's what our joints do. So if we're always kind of going halfway down because we've gotten lazy or we've lost posture or we're not flexible, see, that's where all these things come into play, because people that have really tight hip flexors can't squat properly. So that's where flexibility impacts mobility. So if you're always squatting, say, halfway down, you might be building up some nice strength in that half range of motion or three quarters range of motion. That's great, that's better than nothing. But if you want to be able to get out of chairs, you have to strengthen your squat from a full range of motion. And I'm just using squat as an example. It's going to be true for any muscle group. You have to train through a full range of motion to make sure that those joints are adequately strong in a full range of motion.
Speaker 1:And Arthur Jones and some of the other nautilus greats of the 1960s and 70s talked about it forever that if you really want to work on your mobility when you strength train or you know whatever and I think that's all ego driven it can partly be lazy, and you know, we all have to remember that we have a capacity to be lazy. We have to fight against our instincts to go the path of least resistance. And you know those are the two reasons why someone might not go through a full range of motion either the fact that they don't know and they're ignorant, or, you know, it's just lazy. You know, and the ego could say well, I can use more weight if I go halfway down, and that's true, but that's not the best choice, right? It would be better to use less weight and go through a full range of motion on whatever you're doing. If you're doing pushups, you need to go all the way down. If you're doing squats, you need to go all the way down. Full range of motion. If you're doing leg press, you need to come all the way back. If you're doing pull-ups or pull-downs, you need to go all the way up and all the way down. I see it a lot in pull-ups, where someone will go all the way up and then they'll come maybe halfway down or tops three quarters. They won't lock those elbows out. We have to use full range of motion if we're going to improve our mobility.
Speaker 1:Now, when it comes to improving our flexibility, we've got to stretch. There are three types of stretching. That is recognized, but really only two or three. One of them is kind of like I'll tell you, I'll just tell you. So there is static stretching, and that is the type of stretching that you're thinking of when you think of stretching. Static stretching means you pull the joint into a stretch.
Speaker 1:So let's use my example of quads. You pull your foot back, bending your heel back towards your buttocks, and you get to the point of mild discomfort, never pain, and you hold that stretch from anywhere to 10 to 30 seconds, and you could do sets of that. You know, like, what I'll do sometimes is I'll do 30 seconds and then 30 seconds, and then I'll do 20 seconds and 20 seconds and then 10 and 10, something like that. There's not a perfect formula for it, we just know that 10 to 30 seconds per stretch is usually very adequate to get something out of it and do multiple sets. Now I will do that throughout the day, because flexibility is one of those things that if you don't do it very, very frequently, your muscles will return to a shortened position very, very fast. Muscles will return to a shortened position very, very fast. So, honestly, if you think you're going to stretch like once per day and your muscles are going to stay loose, that's just not the case.
Speaker 1:But the good news is you don't have to do it for a long period of time. I mean, like I said, just stretching your quads for 30 seconds, stretching your hamstrings, touching your toes. You might feel goofy doing it in the elevator or at the airport or whatever, but heck, I mean you're benefiting yourself. I mean you might as well do it in places like that where you're kind of stuck standing around or sitting around. I mean the airport, when you're waiting, can actually be a great place to work on things like getting in your steps and getting in your stretches and things like that Long car rides. I mean absolutely it's best to get out at every break and stretch your muscles a little bit. Again, two or three minutes tops, and you can have an adequate flexibility session for sure. So that's static stretching.
Speaker 1:Another kind is called PNF or proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, and that's a very fancy way of saying contract the muscles and stretch them. I mean, I don't advocate that for the average person. I mean in sports we'll do it with people, like when I'll stretch out people back when I was doing some strength and conditioning, and I still do some of that with the football players but you'll have them contract against your hand, tell them to relax and then you stretch them. That's PNF, because the research shows that if you contract a muscle just prior to stretching it, you're going to get a greater stretch. But here's some news for you If you do the stretch right after the exercise, like if you're squatting, you finish your squats and then you go right into a quad stretch, you're doing the same thing and that is what I often recommend the people to do. It's like, right, when you finish the exercise, just go into the stretch for that particular muscle group. It's already warmed up. It's a great time to stretch the muscles. So I don't really think you need to do PNF. I think static stretching is adequate.
Speaker 1:And then there's dynamic flexibility and that is where you're kind of like moving the joint into the range of motion. So things like that would be what we call butt kicks, where you're bringing your heel up to your butt quickly, or you're doing what we call monster walks, where you're kicking your leg up or leg kicks. I mean that is a great way to warm up, it's a it. Some people like it better because it's more fun, it's movement. A lot of people get bored during static stretching. I mean I don't cause, I kind of use it as a meditation, almost, you know, like an active meditation. I'll just, uh, take five minutes or so after a workout and I will just stretch particular muscles, you know, and zone out and really feel the pull in the muscles and hold it. But some people find it boring, so they like to do what we call dynamic flexibility, which is moving stretches. I mean that's fine too. We'll use that with some clients. We'll use it as warmups.
Speaker 1:You know, I hesitated in the beginning talking about that, only because there's a form of stretching that I don't recommend, called ballistic stretching, and it looks a lot like dynamic stretching and that is where you bounce in the stretches. Now people think, well, that's the same thing as dynamic, what the athletes do. And no, it's not. So. When the athletes are doing dynamic flexibility, it's very controlled. They know what they're doing. With ballistic stretching, it's quick bouncing. I don't recommend that Slow bouncing, yes, in the eyes of a trainer, do it with them. I know Ellen's really good about doing floor touches with some of the clients and she teaches them how to do it in a controlled way. But, like, as you see, there's, like this subjective difference between active flexibility and ballistic. So you know, if you don't know, I'm cautioning you just to stick to static flexibility, unless otherwise directed, because static flexibility, just simply holding the tension for 10 seconds up to 30 seconds, is just a great way to improve your flexibility.
Speaker 1:The last thing I want to say about this is stretching is not a warm up. Oh man, that's like goes right along with spot reduction. You know that. Goes along with that. Lightweight high reps lead to toning. You know those. Those are the big three of just false myths. None of those things are true, right? I mean spot reduction doesn't work. Lightweight high reps doesn't lead to toning. Toning is losing body fat and right along with that is let me stretch to warm up. Stretching is not a warmup. It's the worst time to stretch is when the muscles are cold. You should stretch after you have exercised, not before. So that's why I said, like, right after you finish a set of strength training, add the stretch for that muscle group. Right when you finish a workout whether it be cardio, like you just went for a run or a bike ride Stretch right after strength training. Stretch, that is the time to stretch. I hate when I hear people say let me stretch out to warm up. No, a warm up is raising your core temperature by doing light cardiovascular exercise. Okay, so I hope this helps.
Speaker 1:Try to stretch all of your muscle groups on a regular basis your calves, your quads, your hamstrings and, as far as upper body goes, it's very important to stretch the pectoralis major. How to stretch anything these muscles? Just let us know. We have a great book, the Bob Anderson stretch book. We send people pictures all the time. There's pages of every muscle group and every activity, of exactly how to do it, different stretches. But you know, let us know. But you need to stretch your pecs, you need to stretch your lats, you need to stretch your lower back. So we need to stretch our whole body and again, it doesn't take much at all that what you get from what you put in is so well worth it. All right, so keep stretching and keep staying mobile. Remember full range of motion.
Speaker 1:Thank you for listening to today's show. I ask you to please follow this show on wherever you get your podcasts, and also please hit automatic downloads. It really helps me and it helps the show. Now I want to thank Overhead Door of Daytona Beach, the premier garage door company in Volusia County With the best product with the best service. I can vouch for Jeff and Zach Hawk, the owners. They are great people. If you need any help with your garage doors, give them a shout. 386-222-3165.
