Stretching to Impact Flexibility

Improving flexibility will increase your agility, improve athletic performance and prevent injury. But how does stretching actually “create” or improve flexibility? Human flexibility is determined by the mobility of ligaments, joints, tendons and muscle. To understand stretching it is important to understand the function of each. Ligaments connect bone to bone and tendons connect muscle to bone.

Many modern lifestyles introduce people to hours of sitting in which the body becomes used to a limited range motion and muscles become short and wide. When we stretch, we focus on stretching the muscle, and the point where tendons and muscles meet. A stretch that targets a specific muscle will start in the middle of the muscle and move out to where muscle and tendon meets. The muscle fibers and tendons elongate during a stretch, reducing tension and improving range of motion. 

 At Holmes Chiropractic, we aim to change this trend: by getting you out of your chair, casually stretching and, most importantly, warming up and cooling down before and after physical activity, we can affect a change in your body’s standard level of flexibility. 

Dr. Randall Holmes, D.C.