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Transcript

but if your muscles are stiff okay and

you don’t have good range of motion you

need to watch this video now being in

sports wrestling I’ve did a lot of

stretching in the past and the way we’re

taught is it’s called static stretching

where you’re actually you know trying to

stretch out a muscle and you’re holding

it for 30 to 60 seconds that is the

worst way to stretch now this

information is based on a really

interesting book and I’ll put the link

down below authored by Jim and Phil

Wharton now I’m not sure about Jim but

Phil is a physiotherapist and a fitness

coach and has worked with some of the

top runners in the world Olympic runners

okay so this guy definitely knows his

stuff but his information on stretching

is quite fascinating it makes a lot of

sense and I’m going to share it with you

the first point I want to bring up is a

tight muscle a tight muscle is not ever

going to help you it’s not going to

protect the joint it’s actually weaker

it’s more susceptible to an injury and

usually there’s inflammation now what

happens when you stretch a muscle after

three seconds is you kick in this

stretch reflex it’s called The myotactic

Reflex and the purpose of that reflex is

to counter this stretch and create a

contraction so when you stretch a muscle

you’re basically causing the muscle to

fight that stretch okay and start to

contract and so you have the situation

where you’re using Force against force

and you can actually injure yourself and

I’ve done that many many times even

before a wrestling match I would stretch

incorrectly and end up straining or

pulling a muscle very simply this is how

it works a muscle always comes in a pair

so you have one side of the body is

Contracting and then the other side is

relaxing they don’t both contract at the

same time and if you have one muscle

that’s healthy and it’s Contracting the

other one’s relaxing you have motion and

so motion is all about the coordination

of this contraction and relaxation and

so the type of stretching that they came

up with is called active isolated

flexibility so very simply there’s just

three simple steps all right

you want to isolate the muscle you want

to stretch so let’s say for example you

have a tight hamstring okay that’s the

back part of your leg what you want to

do is you want to contract the opposing

muscle

as you stretch the hamstring what is the

opposing muscle that would be the thigh

muscle or your quadricep okay so you’re

going to be contracting the quadricep

which is going to automatically cause

a communication to the hamstring to

relax it because it absolutely makes no

sense if you’re going to try to stretch

a muscle

that you’re Contracting at the same time

you want to relax the muscle that you’re

stretching right I mean it’s pretty

obvious

but if you contract the opposing muscle

you send signals to allow that hamstring

to totally relax so you can stretch it

without injury number one identify the

muscle you want to stretch number two

contract or tighten the opposite muscle

okay as you stretch and then number

three

when you get to the point at the end of

the range of motion we’ve gone to a

point where you can’t go anymore and I

don’t recommend going into pain at that

point remember I mentioned the stretch

reflex that kicks in well that stretch

reflex kicks in at three seconds so what

you want to do is you want to stretch it

all the way to the end point for two

seconds okay and then you relax it that

way we avoid the contraction or the

countering of this stretch and he

recommends that you repeat this eight to

ten times per muscle and this could be a

great warm-up before your exercise and

he even recommends this or maybe a

version of this

if you injure yourself you see a lot of

times when you injure a knee or another

part of your body they want to

immobilize it now I think you should

immobilize it if there’s a fracture

where there’s a severe injury but if

that injury is not that severe it’s very

important to add motion into that joint

as soon as possible starting with maybe

a passive range of motion and eventually

going into these stretches right here

which should be very therapeutic in the

rehab but that’s a separate topic let’s

get back to the stretching so in this

first example bent knee hamstring

stretch with a rope just so you get the

concept you can see he’s Contracting the

quadricep as he’s bringing this up for

about two seconds at the end of the

range of motion and then he’s relaxing

right and he’s doing that for eight to

ten times

and this next one he’s doing the

hamstring straight leg so he’s using his

thigh muscle or quad to contract as he

holds it for two seconds at the end of

the range of motion but this is the best

way to create a really good relaxation

and increase flexibility of the

hamstring now of course you’re going to

do both sides now I put those links down

below to get more information but if you

haven’t seen my other video in exercise

it’s pretty cool I put it up right here

check it out