As you grow older you will develop muscle imbalances because the muscles of your lower body will gradually shorten. These muscles will continue to remain shortened if appropriate stretching exercises are not done.
How Muscles Use Energy
When a muscle is working, it is letting off energy to do that work, whether the muscle is lengthening, shortening or maintaining a steady length while resisting the tension of the pressure forced on it. Under these conditions muscles behave in the following ways:
- They use up energy and shorten to produce motion.
- They use up energy and lengthen to control motion.
- They use up energy without changing length or resisting motion in order to maintain an original position.
- They store energy.
- They let off energy stored during a stretch as heat if the muscles are not used within a certain period of time after the stretch.
Muscle strength is considered as how large the mass of the muscle is, how much pressure a muscle can hold and how much tension the muscle can develop without tearing.
Muscle power is how much load a muscle can move and how fast that muscle can move that specific load. A muscle has its most power when the individual muscle fibers are at their longest length of contraction. This muscle can move a bigger load at a faster speed. When the muscle fibers contract, the load they can move and the speed at which they can move that load lessens.
Consequently, you gain strength by increasing your muscle mass through exercising and you get power by lengthening your muscle fibers through stretching.
This is evidence/reason for stretching and maintaining good flexibility through developing the good habit of warming up and stretching. You can then achieve your full potential in sports or whatever physical activity in which you are involved, extend your best performance for many more years of your athletic life and avoid the future consequences of ligament and joint damage caused by inappropriate preparation.
What Happens to A Muscle Under Stress.
When a muscle group is put under stress, the muscle fibers contract and shorten to respond to the loading force. At this moment the muscle is using energy to resist this force. If the tension is held long enough, and the muscle is not overloaded, the muscle will eventually relax to its normal length. This happens by overlapping muscle fibers sliding past their original relaxed length and continue doing so until there is no longer any tension in the muscle. Energy is stored in your muscles during the sliding process; thus, giving your muscles more power.
Stretching is very important as a maintainance exercise for weight bearing muscle. You need to maintain proper symmetry and length in these weight bearing groups of muscle in order to stay active and healthy. As your muscle shortens your joint position and stride-length strength changes. This causes damage to ligaments, which results in further changes in joint position and posture.
Think of the elderly gentleman or woman, with chronic pains and ache in his/her knees and lower back, whose posture you have witnessed changed over the years. In all probality he/she can be helped by correcting structural and muscle imbalances of his/her lower body by stretching. To improve such condition he/she needs better muscle function, joint position and a stride length which will reduce the stress on his/her joints and ligaments. Consequently, posture does not have to deteriorate with age.
Preventing Injuries
Tense muscles lead to decreased sensory awareness and raise the blood pressure. Thus, constantly tense muscles lessen their own blood circulation. Blood is the liquid conduit of oxygen and food nutrients to the muscles and the remover of toxic waste. Therefore, when the blood supply is reduced, muscles suffer from a lack of oxygen and nutrients and a build-up of toxic waste; resulting in fatigue, ache and sometimes pain.
Muscle Shortening
When weight lifting the length of individual muscle fiber gets shorter by the repetitive motion and fatigue. Muscle shortening over a long period of time will cause muscle imbalances that can result in ligament damage, excessive movement in the joint and loss of function and power.
Stretching helps in preventing these injuries by not allowing the gradual imperceptible shortening of individual muscle fibers brought on by repetitive motion and fatigue. Stretch and grow old upright.
Warming-up and Stretching
I remember when my teacher would say, "Warm-up, do a few stretches!" How wrong was he? Very wrong! Warming-up and stretching serve different purposes. Warm-ups do just what the word says. They are repetitive exercises done at very low intensity to warm-up the muscles in readiness for higher intensity exercises which include stretching. Before you start a stretching routine, you should do low intensity warm-ups. Warm muscles has an increased blood supply which renders the muscle less likely to be injured by stretching and more strenuous activities.
Good warm-up exercises include repetitive exercises done with a light load at low intensity. Examples are walking, cycling, rowing, stair climbing and exercising with light weights, but not jogging and skipping rope because the joints are not warmed-up and prepared to absorb the shock of the body landing on the firm surface material. Jogging and skipping rope will cause degenerative changes to your lower joints, pelvis and spine, if constantly used as warming-up methods.
Simple start-up stretches must be done in such a way so that ligaments of the joints are not loaded. Advanced skill stretching which puts a load on the structure of the body should only be done by athletes who have been doing such training from childhood.
Guidelines for Proper Stretching
- A simple stretch should be a stretch done by you without being aided by a partner.
- The stretch must also be done by only one major muscle or muscle group and be in a position where it is not using energy to maintain its position.
- After stretching one major muscle or a specific group of muscles, you should stretch the offsetting muscles.
- Stretch the front muscles of your thighs before stretching your hamstrings.
- A proper stretch should also not load other structures such as ligaments, sciatic nerve or joint capsules - membrane enclosing a joint.
- Always keep your neck and backbone in a straight line.
- Any stretch that places an abnormal stress on ligaments will slowly cause permanent damage. Ligaments stabilize your joints by connecting bone to bone. When overstretched, they will gradually lengthen. As the ligament lengthens it becomes weaker and is unable to properly bind the bones of the joint. If the ligament is regularly overstretched, it can become permanently lengthened and can lead to chronic inflammation in your joints.
- Stretches cannot be timed. The relaxation time back to its original length will vary from person to person and from day to day even in the same person.
- Do not overstretch. Overstretching is placing too much tension on a muscle group. It can lead to injury.
- If a muscle feels tight, stretch it after stretching the offsetting muscle.
- While stretching you should not feel any discomfort in a tendon because tendons are practically inelastic tissue attaching your muscles to your bones. They are stronger than both the muscle and the bone covering to which they are attached. Tendons cannnot stretch and since they are very strong, the connecting muscle or the bone covering tissue tears before the tendon does.
- Do not stretch injured or aching muscle.
Getting Ready for the Competition
Warm-up and stretch immediately before any athletic event or competitive activity in order to take full advantage of the increased power stored in your muscle. If you warm-up and stretch a half-hour before an event, your muscle will contract back to its original length and the stored energy will dissipate as heat. Therefore, the energy that is stored by stretching is wasted.
In summary, good flexibility in your joints and muscles helps to prevent injuries; such as torn ligaments, muscle tears and lower back aches. As a child you had natural flexibility and a wide range of motion in your joints, but as you age, you lose that natural flexibility and stretching is the only exercise that could improve your flexibility and help you to maintain it.
