Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Foreign.
[00:00:11] Hello and welcome to Deepen your yoga practice. I am Lauren Leduc, the owner and founder of True Love Yoga in Kansas City, Missouri. And today we'll be deepening our yoga practices by talking about the science of stretching. What it is, how it works, and why it matters. Of course we know yoga is so much more than stretching, but of course it is a part of the asana practice. And I think there's some confusion around what it is and what its benefits are. So my intention is to help clear that up today and empower you with choice and information so that you can make stretching work for you. So what actually happens when we stretch? There are common beliefs out there that stretching lengthens our muscles, that you need to stretch to be flexible and. And that more stretching means safer movement. This episode will explore what science actually says, how stretching works with our nervous systems, and why yoga is more than just stretching. So what is stretching really? When you're stretching, your muscles don't actually permanently lengthen. Muscles are elastic and contractile, so they stretch and go back to their original shape and they can contract and, and most flexibility changes come from increased tolerance to stretch, nervous system adaptation, and improved coordination between tissues. So it is also very much about your brain and your nervous system. So stretching is basically nervous system communication. Stretching sends sensory input to the brain and then the brain decides, is this safe? Can we allow for more range of motion? And then flexibility is often about permission from the brain and nervous system, not your actual tissue length. So let's talk more about the role of the nervous system in stretching. There are a few key players when it comes to stretch. And one are muscle spindles which detect stretch and speed. They are these specialized sensory receptors within skeletal muscles that detect changes in muscle length and the speed of stretching. Perfect. Providing essential feedback to the central nervous system for proprioception or feeling where your body is in space, for motor control and for posture maintenance. Another key player are the Golgi tendon organs. They help sense tension. They're located at the junction of the muscles and the tendons. The tendons connect muscle to bone and they sense muscle tension or force. They're a protective feedback mechanism triggering a reflex that causes the associated muscle to relax from tension, becomes excessive, thus preventing injury. So you have these protective reflexes to help prevent injury. That's why slow stretching might feel different than fast stretching. Slow, steady stretching helps reduce threat. The breath and relaxation help down regulate any kind of reflexive guarding that can happen in our nervous systems. And that's why practices like yin yoga, some Restorative poses and supported stretching often feel really effective and safe. But there are many types of stretching. So let's get into the different types of stretching and what they're good for. So first is static stretching. This is holding a stretch for about 20 to 90 seconds. You might experience something like this in Hatha yoga, where you're holding a posture for a little while and you're supporting the posture with your muscles. Static stretching helps improve stretch tolerance. It calms the nervous system and it's very helpful post practice or for relaxation.
[00:03:44] That being said, it's best when your tissues are already warm and it's not ideal for explosive strength work. So this is not the type of stretching you might do before a strength workout. The next type of stretching is dynamic stretching, and this is moving in and out of range of motion with control.
[00:04:02] So you might experience something like this in Vinyasa yoga and it has a lot of great benefits. One, it improves your mobility. It helps prepare tissues for activity. So this is a great type of stretching to do before a strength workout or before sport. And it enhances coordination. So you might see this in sun salutations and gentle flows, repeated lunges or waves through any kind of dynamic yoga practice, especially one that moves with the breath. Another type is active stretching. So this is using your muscles to move into a stretch. And then when you're in the stretch or the posture, you're contracting your agonist muscles. So the ones that are not stretching, the ones that are holding you into the posture to help lengthen the antagonist muscles. So you might think of something like a standing split where the standing leg is contracting, particularly the quadriceps. So the front of the leg and the back of the leg is stretching. And then the lifted leg, you're using the glutes and hamstrings to lift it up and, and allowing for an openness through the hip flexors. This type of stretching builds strength at end ranges. It helps improve joint stability and it's highly transferable to daily life, so it's very functional. Next, we have passive stretching. So this entails some kind of external force. Oftentimes this is just gravity.
[00:05:25] And it might also entail props, sometimes a partner. So think yin yoga and restorative yoga.
[00:05:33] The benefits of this are increasing relaxation and enhancing awareness. There does need to be a sense of mindfulness to avoid overstretching. Sometimes people who are already quite mobile are drawn to these types of practices because they can just hang out in a deep stretch for a long time. But we do want to be Mindful of the amount of sensation that we are experiencing within a passive posture, and make sure that there's support supported so that we're only feeling maybe a moderate amount of intensity. So this is not using the muscles to hold us up, but instead softening everything into a shape, letting gravity or props do their thing.
[00:06:12] The last type I'll talk about is resistance stretching, in particular, PNF stretching. PNF stretching, or proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, is a technique that involves stretching a muscle to its limit, then contracting it to improve flexibility and range of motion. So typically, you're finding resistance within the posture, resisting into the opposite motion of the posture. So let's say you're in hanumanasana or splits pose. Instead of passively sinking into it, you'd find your range of motion, and then you'd press your feet down into the ground and then slightly toward each other, lifting up a little bit for maybe 8 to 10 seconds for a few deep breaths, and then relaxing back into the posture. You might do that a couple of different times. And this is a really great way to improve range of motion in a very efficient way. It is bypassing some of these protective mechanisms from the brain and nervous system. It's often really useful in rehab or therapeutic settings. And it is very powerful, but it needs to be used intentionally and oftentimes under guidance. Now let's talk about stretching, fascia and hydration. Fascia, which is the web of tissue that connects and protects pretty much everything in the body, including the muscles, adapts to load. It adapts to movement variability, so moving in different ways, and hydration as well. It is happy when it is hydrated. Stretching alone does not fix fascia. Fascia can develop adhesions and dehydration.
[00:07:51] It can get misshapen due to wear and tear on the body and misalignments, as well as inactivity. But we can best support our fascia through a variety of movements. So lots of different types of movement practices through strength, through adequate hydration. And yoga is so good for this because it moves us through multiple planes. We practice slow and mindful transitions, and we also practice a conscious amount of load and release. We're not flying into different postures. We're doing them in a very mindful way. And fascia really loves this. So stretching alone isn't going to help with that. But the way that we move within a yoga practice is really, really healthy for the fascia. Now let's talk about some benefits of stretching. So some physical benefits are improved range of motion. So think like when you're 80, you're going to when to be able to bend down and tie your shoe. So stretching can help with things like that. It can help reduce stiffness in the body. It can create better joint awareness. And it can help reduce the risk of injury when it is combined with strength. So stretching alone is not the best way to prevent injury. We need to be able to move our bodies through full range of motion in an active way, which also requires requires muscle strength. There are nervous system benefits to stretching as well. It can help activate the parasympathetic nervous system, meaning downregulate the nervous system helping us feel more calm. It can reduce perceived stress and improves interoception or the knowledge of what is happening within our bodies. There are also psychological benefits to stretching. It can increase our trust with our body. It can improve our self regulation. It can also improve our awareness of boundaries. We know how far to go. I'll also get into some myths about stretching. One is that stretching prevents all injuries. It does not. Like I said, it also requires strengthening. There's a myth that more flexibility is always better. It's very easy to see someone in a beautiful deep back bend and feel envious. But it doesn't necessarily mean that their body is healthier. And it certainly doesn't mean that they are better at yoga. It might just mean they've had a lot of practice or they have an inherent deep flexibility in their body or even hypermobility. Hypermobility is having joints that move beyond the normal range of motion. Some people have naturally lax connective tissues and many people with hypermobility are healthy. But it also can cause pain. So fatigue, instability, dislocations.
[00:10:29] There might be some kind of hypermobility disorder. So instead of looking at a person who is hypermobile and feeling envious, just know that their body was made a little bit differently and it might benefit them and it might also cause them pain. But it's that's not up to us to judge or to compare ourselves to. Also know if you're hypermobile. It can be really attractive to prioritize stretching over strengthening. But strengthening can be such good medicine for hypermobility. You might not feel your range of motion as intensely once you are able to strengthen the muscles around your joints. But but you will have a lot more longevity in your practice. Also know that when it comes to stretching, pain does not equal progress. We're not looking to feel pain and stretching. Yes, we're going to feel sensation and increased amounts of sensation the further we go. But pushing to a point of pain is not going to help us progress further. It's not going to create longevity in our practice and it's not going to prevent injury. In fact, it can cause injury. We also don't need to stretch every day in an aggressive way. Stretching really needs to support function and awareness and resilience.
[00:11:44] So moving through the different types of stretching, using them strategically, and ultimately listening to your body is going to be the best programming you can take on stretching wise. So where does yoga fit into this? We know yoga is not just stretching. It integrates breath and attention and load and rest.
[00:12:05] Intelligent yoga balances mobility and stability. It balances effort and ease. This is written into the Yoga Sutras. S posture should be steady and easeful. And know that stretching is one tool in yoga and it's something we might do quite often in classes, but it's not the ultimate goal of yoga. The goal of yoga is to master the mind's fluctuations, to find equanimity, to be more skillful, to find spaciousness so that we can see and be in the seat of our own soul. So to close, I'll ask you, as a reflection, where might strength support your flexibility? And where do you feel safe to soften? As you're stretching this week, I invite you to find a sense of curiosity rather than force and to practice in a beautiful, mindful way so that you can practice yoga for years and years to come. Thank you so much for listening. Shanti Om. Peace. Sam.
