Stretching - The Basics Part 2

Stretching – the basics part 2

Magnus Agren
www.magnusagren.com

If you have read the previous part of this series you should have a basic understanding of the science behind stretching. In this installment I will focus on the more technical parts of it, and go into how to perform the different stretches in order to get the most out of them. The stretches I cover are primarily the static ones, since I see them being misused daily I would like to steer things up a bit. This part will be more directly accessible, I promise – more practical, less technical!

As you perform a stretch you should always strive for perfect posture- chest up, chin in, shoulders back and down, tighten abs and so on. You should also, in most of these stretches, try to look straight ahead and keep your body in a neutral position, no rotation if possible. Through these stretches we want the body to get back to its normal and “correct” posture and alignment, therefore no deviations allowed!

We will look at two different stretches for most body parts, one less beneficial that is commonly used and one that I recommend. If you are already using the latter one then great, but maybe there is still something you missed out on the performance, which I might be able to help you out with through this article!? I will focus mainly on the larger muscle groups, but if you find afterwards there are some muscles that didn´t receive the attention they deserved or if you have any questions about other stretches – please post a comment or email me.

Let´s start from the bottom up, shall we!?

Calves

When stretching your calves there is basically one thing you should strive for, which is to get as sharp an angle possible between the foot and the shin. I would also prefer you to place the pressure on the ball of the foot and not your toes; this to assure that you stretch your calves and not your toe flexors! You should also take into account that the calf consists of two different muscles, the gastrocnemius and the soleus, where the first one passes the ankle as well as the knee joint. This you must take into consideration - when stretching the gastroc you should always have a straight leg!
So when stretching the calves I suggest that you begin with straight legs and then bend the knee slightly in order to focus more on the muscle located underneath, the soleus.

One of the most common stretches is the one shown in fig 1, where you stand with your hands against a wall looking like you are about to push the wall away. This stretch is fine but you will have a hard time relaxing your calf enough to give it a real thorough stretch. I prefer the one where you place your foot against the wall (fig 2) and gently strive with your hips towards the wall, thereby sharpening the angle between foot and shin. This makes it easier to relax the muscles and you can calibrate the force of the stretch more easily.

Hamstrings

When stretching your hamstrings you shall always see to it that your foot is straight and not rotated in either direction, this to ensure that you will stretch each portion of the hamstring equally. Keeping your leg straight is not as important, it works with a slightly bent knee as well. But the most crucial thing to ensure when stretching hams is that the movement takes place around the hip joint and NOT your lower back, I cannot stress this enough!!! Your hamstrings originate from your ischial tuberosities and not your lumbal spine, like some seem to believe. So when you perform your stretch always keep your lower back straight- try to think of yourself as a Swiss knife, opening and closing around the hip joint.

One of the most common stretches for the hammies is the one where you place your foot on a bench and bend over (fig 1). I would not recommend this. First of all people have a tendency to bend their lower backs more than their hips here, as mentioned above, and secondly they often end up rotating their foot outwards, opening up the hip. This will place more stretch on one part of the hamstring than the others. So I would suggest instead you sit on a bench, fig2, with one leg on the bench and the other one off, resting on the floor in a “hurdle” position, this will stabilize you hip joint and give you a much better and safer position to start out from. From this position let you body travel forward with your chest held high. And at any cost try to avoid bending your lower back!

Gluteus

The glutes are made up of several muscles, but for this article I will focus on the buttock as a whole. The most common stretch ought to be the one where you sit on the floor hugging your knee while trying to get it to your chest, fig 1. The stretch itself is not a bad one. But if you are tight and stiff in these muscles, you might not get the force you need with this one. So I use a derivation of it where you place your leg on the floor in front of you, fig2, and let your body weight do the job for you. I carefully lean towards the leg.

Quadriceps

You have almost certainly stretched you quads by standing erect and trying to pull your heel towards your rear end, fig1!? This must, pardon me, be one of the most useless stretches you can do for your quads. Why? Well, first of all, you will separate your knee joint when doing this letting all the force push your knee cap into the joint. Secondly, if you do not have the abs of Jamo you will probably increase your lordosis, which will remove the stretch effect from the quad itself and instead put your lower back under that much more stress. And this is only some of the side effects I could mention about this variation. But let´s leave it at that.
What I do recommend is the version shown in fig 2. Here you reduce the stress on your lower back, ensuring you get the desired stretch in your quads by stabilizing your hip and focusing the pressure above the knee, to relieve the knee joint. For the best effect when performing this variation, try to lower your hip towards the bench while you pull your heel towards you buttock.

Lats

When stretching the lats the one thing that most people miss out on is the fact that the lats attaches to the hipbone, which means that in order to get a full stretch you need to bend over a bit for a slight flexion in the hip. This is a part you lose when you do the basic standing side-bending stretch, fig 1. So I prefer to use the one in fig 2 where you bend over your flexed hip as a large C and use your free hand to push away and to create a greater stretch in the lats.

Chest

An important consideration when trying to get the most out of a chest stretch is to focus it around the shoulder joint- leave that poor elbow out of it! Far too many just throw their hand up on the wall, fig1, with an overstretched elbow, or the opposite- bend the elbow but leave it hanging in the air, so to speak, while pushing their hand towards the wall, turning their upper body into the same direction. What this does is it removes the focus and stretch effect from the chest, in the first example putting more stress on the elbow, in the second one not stretching at all!

A better way is to put the entire lower arm up against the wall, fig2, preferably over shoulder height, supporting the elbow. Stand with your upper body facing straight ahead, chest up, straight back, then take a step forward with the same side leg, hereby preventing the upper body from rotating towards the wall.

The pectoral is a broad fan shaped muscle with its different parts attaching both to the clavicle, the sternum and the ribs (usually referred to as the upper, middle and lower part when benching). So think about this, if you train the chest in different angles, why not show it the same amount of respect when stretching afterwards?! You need to do this in different angles by the same reason you have to vary the training angle using an incline, straight and decline bench - to cover all the fibers. The most important part to stretch is the descending one, which have the greatest tendency to shorten and pull the shoulders forward. The higher up you place your arm the lower fibers you affect.

Front Shoulders/Biceps

A tight bicep and front shoulder combined with tight chest muscles is one of the reasons for internally rotated shoulders, which in time may give you tons of problems more serious than just a visually incriminating lousy posture. So please do not neglect these muscle groups, and make sure you perform the stretch correctly, in my opinion best done according to fig.2. Important notice: Make sure you grab the bar or support your hand with the palm facing up as you internally rotate your arm! The one in fig.1 is commonly seen in the gym, but it does not give you a sufficient stretch of the biceps, due to lack of rotation of the arm. It is also more beneficial to stretch one arm at a time as you pretty much always have a imbalance of flexibility between the sides, which will not be addressed when stretched together.

Triceps

When stretching your triceps always see to it that your elbow points towards the ceiling, or the sky if outside ;-) and make sure you at the same time get your hand as close to your shoulder as possible. I often see the first part being done right (fig 1) but often the second part is not done correct, they just flex the biceps a bit to get a stretch in the triceps. But to give it a thorough stretch you need to use more force than that. Use a rope or something like it to pull your lower arm down towards your shoulder and back. At the same time use a wall to lean into, so you can get a real stretch in your triceps as seen in fig.2.

Neck

The most common neck stretch is the one where you grasp your head by the ear and tilt it to the opposite side. This version puts unnecessary strain on your cervical spine due to exaggerated lateral flexion. To avoid this simply sit down on a bench and grasp the seat with the hand on the side being stretched and slightly lean away. This to lower your shoulder girdle to initiate the stretch, so you don´t have to bend your neck as much to the side for a good stretch. It will also put less strain on your spine and save it for the future.

So now you only have to put this in use and keep stretching as a regular part of your work out. Please reread the first part to know what and when to use the different kinds of stretches.

MFT sport specific guru,

Magnus Agren
www.magnusagren.com