by Richard A. Convery
The purpose of stretching; is it actually doing anything, or is it nothing more than a trendy fad? Many people wonder whether stretching actually achieves anything more than a mere psychological ‘feel-good’ experience performed to prepare a person before playing sport? To add a little more spice to this debate, we might as well throw in the question of why, when and how a person should do this questionable stretching thing? In order to shed some useful light on the matter in the space we have, we really should explore a few issues, that once understood, have had a profound effect on back and neck pain sufferers all around the world.
First up, we will look at the question of why? Performed correctly, stretching actually produces a number of physiological benefits. Elasticity within soft tissue fibres, particularly the muscles, can be successfully restored by the re-introduction of two critical factors, and oddly enough, stretching is one of them. Without elasticity, muscles and joints cannot function as they should, and when a joint cannot function correctly, pain is usually the result. Every muscle in the body directly or indirectly crosses at least one joint, so it is quickly apparent as to why the elasticity of muscles is so crucial.
Resistance exercise, produces and represents the other half. This is due almost entirely to the fact that resistance exercises, by design, produce a capability for the joint to create movement by the shortening of the individual muscle fibres over its length and across the joint [or joints]. Instantaneously, as the muscle on one side of the joint is contracting by telescopically shortening within itself, the corresponding [or antagonist] muscle [or muscles] on the other side lengthens via the reversal of the same telescopic process to facilitate the movement. If either process fails to occur, joint function is lost, and pain is the result. Logically, if resistance exercises are responsible for the enabling of muscle fibres to shorten, then the question needs to be asked, what creates the capacity for muscle fibres to lengthen in order to allow the joint to move? No doubt you are way ahead of me, and no doubt you have already concluded it is stretching, provided, of course, the stretching is done effectively.
Might there be any other arguments as to why stretching is necessary? And not surprisingly, there are. Stretching minimises the frequency and inclination for muscles to tear during the process of rapid shortening or lengthening. Additionally, stretching has a major role to play in eliminating waste products from muscle fibres, particularly waste products that have been deposited in muscle fibres as a by-product of exercise. Stretching, if performed correctly, also plays a crucial role in detoxifying muscles as well as the removal of fibrous adhesions.
Now, let’s have a glance at the when factor. In order to minimise the risk of injury in sport, particularly in any form of contact sport, or in sports that involves anything more than a token amount of jarring or weight-bearing activities, stretching is essential to effectively prepare the muscle fibres for those activities. And in keeping with the content of the previous paragraphs, effective stretching should also be comprehensively performed after completion of the sport activities but before cooling down has occurred. This is also true for any non-sporting strenuous or weight-bearing activity such as lifting or carrying. This may seem obvious to some, however if you cast your mind back to the past, can you, with confidence, say that this was routinely done each and every time it should have been? And if it had, might you now not be suffering the pain that has led you to seek assistance in recovery? The glaring omission so far in the when argument is that effective stretching should also be done both at the beginning and the end of a stressful or demanding day, as well as at the beginning of the next.
A function that may possibly appear as obvious to many, yet needs stating anyway, is the need to de-compress the spine on a daily basis [did I neglect to mention that stretching, done properly, also de-compresses the spine?]. Daily spinal de-compression ensures that each new day isn’t burdened by carried-forward spinal compression from all the things you needed to do yesterday on top of all of today’s demands for your already compressed and painful spine. Apart from the other anatomical and physiological benefits of stretching, one of the most, if not THE most crucial, essential, and self-enabling ways to achieve recovery for any back and/or neck pain sufferer is spinal de-compression. Spinal de-compression, on a daily basis, is absolutely essential for any/all sufferers if they hope to restore the spinal functions and reduce pain.
The remaining consideration is the one that all else pivots upon; it’s the how factor. Many people state that they regularly perform stretching routines, yet upon investigation it generally becomes apparent that the stretches being done are NOT the ones critically needed to recover, AND the ones being done aren’t even being done in a way that can possibly bring about any sort of benefit. Let’s look at it this way; I can lay out all of the pieces of a brand new machine on a garage floor, but if I don’t know how the pieces fit together, all I have is a collection of parts, and I certainly don’t have anything that works the way it should.
If we are to have a body that works the way it has in the past before the problems manifested, we must have all, or at least most of the parts in good working order and arranged in a cohesive and organised manner. If any further convincing is required that stretching plays a fundamental and unique role in the process or recovery, we might like to take a look at the animal kingdom, for example at a dog, a cat, a horse, or any other animal we can think of, and the very first thing most of these animals do after waking up, is to stretch. And considering that most of these animals have horizontal spines, whereas our spines are vertical for most of the time, and especially considering that we often carry extra loads, the need for us humans to stretch regularly and do so effectively will probably leap vertically up our own priority scales. Add to this the lesson from the feathered species, and we learn that birds actually stretch almost continuously throughout the day and night, and not just when they wake up. So, please, remind me again who the intelligent ones are??!! Stretching, we should overwhelmingly conclude, is far more than just a trendy fad, and when done correctly, becomes an essential ingredient in any recovery regime for back or neck pain sufferers [or then again, possibly sufferers might opt for surgery, or lifetimes of medication dependency, or maybe an acceptance of hopelessness, but that’s unlikely the reason you have chosen to read this and other articles].