Flexibility and Stretching: Too Much of a Good Thing?

“Flexibility” means the ability to move a joint through its full range of motion. However, the definition of a “full” range of motion is up to you.

For everyday fitness, you are flexible if you can perform common tasks without being limited by tight muscles or injured, inflexible joints. This is not the same sort of flexibility required of gymnasts, ballet dancers, or contortionists.

Some people take flexibility training too far. If flexibility is a goal in and of itself, rather than a means to an end, problems arise. Folks who become obsessed with stretching can temporarily weaken their muscles and damage their joints. Don’t be one of these people.

When is inflexibility a problem?

Infants are extremely flexible. Unless you’re a freak, you’re not as flexible as you were when you were a baby. That’s just how it goes.

Modern lifestyles lead to inflexibility.

We’re not designed to sit in a chair all day. Sitting shortens the hip flexors, lengthens the glutes, and causes alignment problems that affect the knees and lower back.

Underuse results in lost flexibility in the hamstrings, shoulders, and neck.

If you lift weights, hypertrophy can lead to flexibility problems. The body adapts to repeated max effort lifts by gradually shortening the muscles involved until they’re only flexible enough to complete that movement. Extra weight on the bar overstretches these inflexible muscles. Muscle pulls or joint misalignments are the eventual result.

The goal of flexibility training is to prevent this adaptation. This prevention should be a component of sustained lifting programs.

What’s wrong with stretching?

There is nothing wrong with stretching if you do it to improve your fitness for lifting and for life.

But you can set yourself up for injury if you do it wrong.

Key points to remember:

• Stretching may temporarily weaken muscles. Do your intense stretching after working out.
• Never stretch your tendons and ligaments. There are no pain receptors in connective tissue, so you don’t know you’re doing damage until it becomes obvious.
• Inflexibility happens gradually. Flexibility training should also be a gradual process.
• Only stretch your muscles when they are relaxed. If you stretch a flexed muscle, you put extra pressure on your tendons.
• Static stretching is rarely necessary. Dynamic stretching is best for most of us.

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