When Stretching, Take It Easy, Don’t Simply Let ‘er Rip
Posted on 06. Apr, 2010 by Mariam Amiri in Health
For those of us who consider stretching a necessary evil, the recent finding by federal researchers that the practice falls short of preventing sports injuries was a welcome, albeit temporary, reprieve. Tugging on tight muscles can eat up tremendous amounts of time. It’s painstakingly boring. And though Bikram, or “heated” yoga, instructors like to promise that even steel melts if you get it hot enough, stretching never seems to get easier for chronically inelastic bodies. The study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that stretchers were no more or less likely to suffer injuries such as pulled muscles. The injuries that researchers looked at typically struck within a muscle’s normal range of motion, meaning that stretching would not have made a difference, according to the research published last month in an American College of Sports Medicine journal. The authors also concluded that there isn’t sufficient evidence to endorse or discourage stretching to prevent injury. Further research is “urgently” needed to determine the proper role of stretching in sports for competitive athletes and weekend warriors, they said. Forget sports. We need stretching in daily life, especially those of us trapped in front of computer monitors and then stuck in cars during rush hour. Like many of these studies, the research was not designed to address the value of a limber, pliant person. Stretching, now so fashionable it has spawned “How To” guides for Complete Idiots and Dummies, improves flexibility, which increases the range of motion, and is recommended by the National Institutes of Health and the President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports. Health practitioners laud its ability to get the blood circulating, get the chi flowing and improve balance and posture. Some physical therapists call stretching the best anti-aging medicine around. The ongoing debate is not over whether we should stretch but how, when and for how long. Most people forget to breathe or target specific muscles such as hamstrings or quadriceps rather than the whole body, and they exacerbate injuries by yanking on already strained ligaments. Often, stretching is a rushed, 5- to 15-minute ordeal. Although that might be fine if you’re working out creaks at the copying machine, it isn’t the best approach in conjunction with exercise, said Miranda Esmonde-White, the creator of the “Classical Stretch” video series. “I don’t call that stretching,” said Esmonde-White, who has programs for everyone, including Olympic-caliber athletes, back pain sufferers and breast cancer survivors who want to regain pre-surgical range of motion. “That’s warming up or cooling down after a workout.” Esmonde-White’s integrated approach is time-consuming but effective and a workout in its own right. She targets the entire body by combining dance, yoga, pilates and tai chi. She also utilizes a system called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, or PNF. Essentially, PNF combines passive stretching with isometric stretching and involves contracting a muscle, relaxing and releasing it. “You can’t just stretch one part of your body,” she said. “The whole thing is linked.” I didn’t figure that out until I tried yoga, a comprehensive system of stretching and strengthening using physical poses and the breath. Once I finally learned how to stretch my hips and other hard-to-reach areas, sitting at a desk all day became a breeze. But yoga can be deceptively dangerous for the inexperienced and overzealous. Convinced that a strained hamstring just needed to “let go,” I stretched my injured leg as much as possible. A year later, not surprisingly, I was still hurt. But yoga, done wisely, works well. So does NIA, or neuromuscular integrative action. The 20-year-old method, which is popping up in health clubs, is a little more upbeat than yoga. The choreographed routine, set to music, mixes jazz dance, aerobics, martial arts, yoga and other movements. Then there are Esmonde-White’s DVDs, which I’ve grown to love because the former Canadian ballerina takes stretching far more seriously than she takes herself. When a cat wanders onto the set or she slips on beach sand, she simply laughs and keeps going. But when it comes to stretching, she’s clearly on a crusade. Her system, she believes, is the answer to injury prevention. The CDC research “only helps the cause of `let’s do it right,’” said Esmonde-White. “The benefits of correct stretching and freeing every joint are overwhelming.”
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