July 8, 2013 Brandon Hetzler

The Miseducation of Stretching

“I want to be more exible” is a statement I get from many of the
young athletes I train. My immediate follow up of “Why?” is usually
met with a dumb look (or at least a bit dumber than normal). When you
question someone why they want to be faster, jump higher, or get
stronger they usually have a solid reason. Why they want to get more
exible is often an area they struggle to answer.

Why Are You Stretching?

In certain sports (gymnastics, diving, wrestling, and the various
martial arts) having a high level of exibility is inherent to success in
the sport. In many of the other sports (football, baseball, basketball,
etc.) exibility is assumed to improve their performance. But does it?
Pretty much every study on stretching and performance measures
(vertical, speed, strength) is inconclusive and can be summed up with
one phrase: whatever you are doing, keep doing it.  Meaning, if you
stretch, keep stretching or if you don’t stretch, keep not stretching.

The Half Kneeling Lizard Drill

Why then, is the need to stretch so high in many people? “My

hamstrings get tight when I [sit for a long time, ride in a car, ll in your
own blank.]” So, why do you assume you need to stretch? Because they
feel “tight”? Why do they feel tight? What is that tightness?

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The body can only support itself and our various limbs through two
means: compression and tension. Gravity provides most of the
compression, and we provide most of the tension. Load or compress a
joint and it becomes more stable. Activate a muscle group and that area
becomes more stable (hence all of the “core” training to stabilize the
lumbar spine). This tension can actually accomplish two thing:

1. It can generate movement (as in the glutes ring to drive up out of

a deep squat).
2. It can generate stability (as every other muscle that is active
during a squat keeping us from exploding).

This tension is expressed in the muscles, but it comes from the brain.
Whether consciously (for movement) or subconsciously (as in feed
forward tension/stability) a signal is sent from the corresponding
motor cortex in the brain (the outer covering of the brain) down a
neural pathway (nerve) to the group of muscles the nerve innervates.
This nerve impulse creates a chemical change in the muscle spindles
(action potential) that causes the muscle spindles to turn on. They stay
on until the action potential is removed and then they turn o (relax).
So, basically, we give our muscles way too much credit—all they do is
respond to a signal from the brain to turn on.

The SAMersault Series from Movement Restoration Project, similar to the

Happy Baby Series from PM.

When there is tension, the brain has sent the signal to that region that
these muscles need to turn on. If they aren’t moving, they are probably
being called on to stabilize. So, why when we sit do our hamstrings get
tight? Typically, in chairs and cars, we have the aid of a backing to
support our trunk—this essentially allows our trunk muscles to turn
o . We still have to stabilize our pelvis in order to balance our spinal
column on it and use our upper extremities, so not everything gets to
relax. In a seated position, our psoas and hamstrings are tasked to help
stabilize our pelvis. Yes, our hamstrings are shortened at the knee, but
they are lengthened at the hip—usually resulting in little to no change
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in actual length of the muscle—negating the argument that they are

just tight because they have been shortened.

If the body is sending the signal to increase tension to a muscle region,

and we stretch that region, are we xing the problem or continuing to
propagate the problem? Well, how often do you have to stretch? Every
time you get up? Hmm, maybe if stretching xed the problem you are
doing it wrong, or maybe your actual problem isn’t being addressed.

The Problem is Not Flexibility—It’s Stability

Now, I’m not anti-stretching. In fact, I think it is great—when done
appropriately, at the right time, and as part of the right program.
Mobility problems do exist, and exibility can play a part in that. Gray
Cook says, “Poor movement can exist anywhere in the body, but poor
movement patterns can only exist in the brain.” When dealing with
complex movement issues, simple stretching will never be the x. We
must take a di erent approach.

Before

Using this individual on the right as an example, he must have tight

hamstrings, right? Just like almost every other high school male
athlete. Some people might say it is his hip exors, and bravo for
expanding your scope. Even if it is the hip exors, why? Barring an
injury that has required four-plus weeks of immobilization or a recent
actual growth spurt, tissue length rarely is the cause of this (in my

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observations of training several hundred middle school, high school,

and college athletes every year). So again, why?

Instability. The body will always generate tension to provide stability—

that is the only strategy it has! Many times, this instability can come
across as a mobility issue because the tension locks things down to
provide stability. If we begin to stretch the area where tightness is
presenting itself, we are actually making it harder for the brain to
stabilize the area. We have made it harder to generate tension.

For this athlete, the x began with addressing a speci c tender point in
his super cial back line (Read Anatomy Trains for an explanation if
you’re not familiar). We followed the soft tissue work up with some
movement-based mobility drills that not only incorporate exibility,
but di erent basic movement postures and positions that are mapped
within our brain (as demonstrated in the pictures from our Movement
Restoration Workshop at UCLA).

After

After we addressed his tender points and basic movement patterns, we

went straight into a kettlebell deadlift for 2-3 sets of 15 reps at a
relatively light load. All of this took place in the span of ten minutes.
The result?

A toe touch. Five weeks later, he has maintained that toe touch (which
he hadn’t done since grade school his parents tell me.)

The soft tissue work can be as great as some hands on manual work—
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depending on what you legally can and cannot do—or as good as some
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targeted foam rolling or lacrosse ball work. This must be followed with
some mobility work (stretching ts well here, but it has to be based on
something, like the FMS, not where you feel the tightness) and then the
a ected patterns must be loaded in some manner.

Blindly Stretching Is Like Randomly Training

Is stretching wrong? No. But blindly stretching, like randomly training,
it isn’t the most e ective. If you don’t know where you are going, any
road will get you there (I’m borrowing that from Dan John). However,
many times it will keep you in the same place. There are many great
stretches that require the body to generate stability at the same time as
working through mobility issues (the half kneeling hip exor stretch,
the lizard, the arm bar, the Brettzel, the windmill). “Stretching” is a lot
like cardio—if you can do it while reading a magazine, the newspaper,
or your iPhone, it probably is a waste of your time.

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