"Stretching Will Not Help You, Unless You Strengthen the Underlying Muscle"

[ucimigrate]

Hi Everyone,

1. Many expert personal trainers say that "all the stretching in the world will not help you unless you strengthen the underlying muscle".

Can anyone say why that is?

2. In my case, I am the typical office worker. I wonder how this works.

With the hips, hamstrings, and chest feeling so tight, it feels normal to stretch them. Why is this unproductive or even counterproductive?

 

[Jeremyk1]

I can’t give you any of the actual science offhand, but I’ve heard that one major reason for the tightness is actually muscle weakness, or, more specifically, imbalance in muscle strength. For example, people who do a lot of jogging will stimulate their quads, but not the hamstrings. The hamstrings can then begin to tighten to try and balance the load on the knees from the other side from the stronger quads.

For someone who just sits a lot and the associated muscles begin to tighten, that’s a different issue and probably would need a different solution. I think at least. Stretching would likely help, at least to an extent. But working the muscles will of course help to warm them up, get blood flowing, and keep them looser. Also, for myself, the best thing I’ve done to improve flexibility is just working muscles through as much range of motion as possible. I used to not be able to reach my toes with my legs straight, by several inches. It was bad. Without doing much, or really any stretching, but just squatting super deep, I can actually now reach past my toes without bending my legs.

 

[Ironpirate]

Your muscles are tight because they are week and unbalanced, routine stretches will improve just about everything in your life. You can get stronger by stretches or yoga, you won't be winning world's strongest man but it can add a little muscle. Also being flexible with allow you to work muscles from angles that a stiff person can't.

 

[kisaj]

I'll admit that even after lifting for 30 years and competing in various sports, I've never been a big stretcher unless it was incorporated into the warm up or I was doing DC training. However, now wiser in my older years and seeing what my daughter is dealing with as a club level lacrosse player, I will say that I believe the PTs that say the stretch is more important than the muscle. My daughter is very strong, but imbalanced because of tightness in her quad and hips and it's affecting her knees and all the muscle in the world is useless if you are not mobile. In our situation, my daughter's quads are so strong but the tightness is keeping her at about 50% strength so we've had to move to dry needling (similar to acupuncture) to release the muscle and stimulate blood to the area.

I'd say (and I am partially repeating what we are being told and DC training backs it up) is that static stretches will be superior for not only mobility and lengthening of the muscles, but helping build muscle when incorporated with resistance training.