Dance Recommendation | Stretching versus Over-Stretching — A Dancer’s Life

Stretching is likely one of the finest methods to enhance your flexibility and vary of movement. It promotes circulation and retains the joints and muscle tissues versatile, permitting the physique to stay supple and vibrant. When your fascia is feeling supple and hydrated, it offers you a way of spaciousness and connectedness to your physique because the nerves within the fascia can optimally talk with our mind. The connective tissue in your physique can also be partly accountable for your proprioception, your physique’s sense of the place it’s in house and the way it pertains to itself. Feeling a slight pull within the muscle in a approach that’s not completely comfy is a constructive factor – it means you’re working to extend your flexibility. A productive energy ought to really feel barely uncomfortable however any stabbing or sharp ache is a no-go.

Whereas stretching can alleviate compression and enhance flexibility, over-stretching could be counter productive and really result in stiffness. Over-stretching occurs whenever you stretch your muscle tissues past their capability when it comes to flexibility and vary of movement. It means the size of the tissue is bigger than ones capacity to manage stated size. It might additionally infer {that a} muscle is stretched previous its level of pure elasticity and wholesome tissue size. This may typically occur in these with hyper-mobile joints as they’ve actually unfastened ligaments which permit the joint to maneuver additional than it must.

Throughout the muscle stomach lies ‘spindles’ that are sensory receptors that choose up the velocity and depth of a stretch. If a stretch is just too quick or too intense, the spindles set off a reflex arc to the spinal twine and again to the muscle tissues to contract with a purpose to keep away from tearing muscle fibres. We need to stretch additional however our spindles intercede to guard us, leading to stretching with a sense of stiffness and resistance, locked right into a contraction and going nowhere. To maintain the muscle spindles at bay, consider lengthening into softness and preserve that size over time. This can enable the spindles to habituate to the brand new size and fireplace much less often.

Over-stretching may trigger ligament injury. Ligaments are designed to help every joint and may get increasingly relaxed from extreme stretching. If over-stretching continues it could trigger inner shifting of the joint surfaces towards one another. By reducing the integrity of the ligaments, it could additionally trigger put on and tear on cartilage resulting in joint ache and degeneration.

There’s a high quality line between difficult our muscle tissues with a purpose to enhance our flexibility and hurting ourselves. Not warming up previous to stretching is the first motive strains and pulls happen. Warming up consists of the inclusion of dynamic actions that may encourage the circulation of blood across the physique and enhance the vary of movement. As soon as the physique is heat, we are able to progress into static stretching and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) – stretching that contracts and holds a focused muscle in a stretched place. To be taught extra in regards to the significance of warming up, take a look at our different article right here.