The Best Kind of Stretching You Can Do…Is Strengthening
Whenever we perceive tightness in a muscle, our first inclination is always to try and stretch it. But what if I told you there was a better way to decrease muscle tension? I have yet to meet anyone who stretched a tight muscle one time and reported that their symptoms were gone, and their muscles stayed loose, which means there must be a better way to get longer-lasting results.
Tightness is a symptom, not a cause
One thing I always say to my patients is that tightness is a symptom, not a cause. If we feel tight somewhere in our body, we need to be asking ourselves why. Typically, it’s because muscles elsewhere in our body aren’t doing their job. Muscles tighten up in an attempt to do the work we ask of them. That is called a contraction. However, once they perform said job (say, our biceps when we do a biceps curl), they need to then relax again until we need to use them. If the task we ask of our muscles is bigger than what they can accomplish, or not the job that muscle is designed for, that muscle do it, but begrudgingly. Because it is trying to perform a job it doesn’t know how to do, it won’t contract in a uniform and coordinated manner. This causes the muscle to work harder and harder, stressing the muscle out and making it difficult for that muscle to relax during the times we’re not using it. If we ask it to over work again and again, it will stay tight. This will lead to feelings of perceived tightness in our body. In our body we have, generally speaking, two types of muscles: movers and stabilizers. Our movers are the big muscles in our body that we’re all familiar with: the quads, calves, biceps, etc. The stabilizers are all of our much smaller muscles closer to our joints that give our body stability. These are things like the multifidi, gemelli, obturator internus, and quadratus femoris. Our body always likes to operate down the path of least resistance, which means it can often default to using all of our big muscles when it’s supposed to be using our stabilizing muscles. This causes our movers to have to do two jobs (move and stabilize), which causes them to tighten over time in response to having to do more work than they should be.
Let’s look at a common example:
Tight Hip Flexors
A lot of people report that their hip flexors always feel really tight – this happens often in runners, cyclists, and people who sit a lot during their day. Their inclination is to always just try and stretch out the muscles that feel tight, typically doing a hip flexor stretch. It feels good and like it gains you some relief for a little bit, then you feel that same tight hip position minutes to hours later.
That’s because we have to ask ourselves why the hip flexors are tight if we want to actually solve our problem.
Our hip flexors are our Iliacus and our Psoas Major (highlighted in orange below on the left). The iliacus starts on the brim of the pelvis, but the psoas major attaches directly to our T12-L5 vertebrae. They both join together and insert on the lesser trochanter of the femur. The main action of the hip flexors are to (shockingly) flex our hip, but also to bend our spine to the side. Because they attach to the spine, that means they do give the spine some stability. However, because these are big muscles, their jobs are to move the hip and spine, not to stabilize it. Stability is the multifidi’s job (in orange on the right).
Iliacus and Psoas Major
The Multifidi
Our body is very economical and it always likes to take the path of least resistance. It’s a lot easier for it to use the brute force of big muscles than it is to fine tune the use of small muscles. Most of our muscles that are stabilizers contribute to rotation in some way. As we get older, we don’t rotate or move in many directions other than forward as much. We don’t play tag, throw balls, or roll around on the ground. Therefore, over time, the multifidi get used less and less and the body can start to ask the psoas major to not only move the hip and spine, but to stabilize it too. Do you know how stressed and tight you feel when someone adds another task on your already full plate at work? That’s how the psoas major begins to feel when our body continually relies on it to do two things. It starts to slowly contract and tighten in order to do its job AND the job of the multifidi, causing that perceived tightness in your hip.
So, you have two options.
1. Keep stretching your hip flexors for the rest of your life for some relief every day.
2. Re-teach your multifidi how to work to address the lack of stability, therefore allowing the hip flexors to go back to their day job of moving your hip.
I know which one I would choose.
Want to know one of the best ways to help coach your multifidi to perform better? Try these hip hike exercises out.
Now, this isn’t to say that there isn’t a time or place for stretching. But my goal in physical therapy is to equip my patients with the tools they need so that they can stretch because they want to, not because they need to.
Does the above sound like you? Have a question about another tight muscle group? Learn how to stop relying on short-term stretching and achieve long-term results. Sign up for a call here to discuss how I can help you return to moving fearlessly, or text me here!
Pssst. Have tight hamstrings? You’re going to want to read this blog too about how to fix that
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