Is stretching not helping?
Lately, I have been coming across a lot of people with the same frustrating problem: they are consistently stretching, and yet they still have pain or tension, or tightness. Does this sound familiar? I have been here with my low back and hip pain. Years ago I was doing 5 plus yoga classes a week, stretching at night, stretching between shifts for work, and still everything felt “tight” or stuck or tense and often painful!
It got to the point where I was thinking “Does stretching even make a difference?”. The answer here is both a yes, and a no. Because when I stopped stretching, everything was still tight, tense, sore, and painful; but honestly it was hit and miss on whether it was actually WORSE, or more painful or more tense.
Stretching can be helpful, but a lot of the time you are stretching based on the feeling of something being “tight”. Often one muscle, or a group of smaller muscles around a joint is doing MAJORITY of the work with your movements. Lets use the shoulder joint and the upper traps vs rotator cuff muscles as an example here. The upper traps are that more “meaty” piece of muscle from the base of your neck, over the top of the shoulder and mostly helps you elevate your shoulders towards your ears. The rotator cuff is a group of 4 muscles that surround the shoulder joint, and shoulder blade (scapula) and allow the shoulder and scapula to move in more rotational ways, as well as providing stability to the shoulder itself. You might feel you hold a lot of “tension” or pain or soreness in your upper traps muscles, and you probably do! SO you go and try to stretch it out, you tip your head to one side and the other, you try to “relax” your shoulders away from your ears, anything to alleviate just a little of the tension. Now your muscles are contractile cells, they are MADE for contracting together (shortening even) and then apart (lengthening in a way). And as you stretch you might think you are forcing this lengthening- and perhaps you are. But those upper traps are working hard to stabilize and support the shoulder and scapula, and now you have just gone and created MORE space in the muscle. So it has to work even harder to try and continue to stabilize and support it. And likely your body has created a pattern where it relies on the upper traps to support and hold the shoulder joint and shoulder blade. When really it needs the help of the rotator cuff muscles (and other shoulder stabilizers and movers) to support the whole SYSTEM of the shoulder and the scapula.
So what to do about it all? As I have felt and known in my own body, and maybe you have experienced too, that just straight stretching is not doing the trick. So here are my suggestions:
Start MOVING- and moving DIFFERENTLY. Do you need to start up a new workout regime? NO. But bringing in some joint mobility, movement, and basic strength exercises is a great place to start. Like in the situation with the upper traps, you have one big large muscle trying to do it all- and it can’t. Do you feel overwhelmed when your balancing and taking on too much? I know I sure do, and your muscles are the same. Starting to learn to move the shoulder blade, activate the rotator cuff muscles, and other stabilizing/ surrounding muscles will start to tell the upper traps that it has help. And those associated neuro-pathways (body movement patterns) can then begin to change.
Befriend your patterns: talk to or see a health professional (RMT, Physiotherapist, Chiro, etc) and get a good assessment of HOW your joints are moving, how the range of the systems (joint, muscle and fascia) are working together, and understand or get educated on how you might be moving (or not moving) that is creating these patterns of tension.
Stop (over-)stretching: it might feel good for a short period of time, but all your doing is providing more torque and irritation to the muscle that is doing all the work. Back to the upper traps: they are trying so hard to stabilize the shoulder joint and scapula, and then you go and stretch them apart, and now it has to work even harder to keep it all together, continuing to create that tension or tightness or pain you’re experiencing. SO instead of stretching side to side, try moving the neck in full range of motion, try getting the shoulder blade and its surrounding muscles to move and activate so they can begin to re learn how to support and play their part within the system.
Make sure you are getting the NUTRIENTS your muscles need. To get the best contraction AND relaxation from a muscle it has some minerals it needs to do so: sodium, magnesium, and potassium are the big three. Make sure you are getting enough of these elements in your diet. Try an electrolyte mix into your water- my faves are LMNT and Arbonne’s Hydrate Me, hit reply and I will gladly set you up with a sample.
Questions? Need some exercises or help? Reach out and lets chat! I want every body to move with less pain, and more ease.