Stretching/Yoga

Date:	2006-Jan-19
Author:	Mike Orr <sluggoster@gmail.com>

Stretching is the flip side of weight training. What goes up must come down, and what contracts must expand. You may think the hardest muscles occur by always contracting, never expanding, and remaining tense throughout the day, but healthy muscles need both contraction and expansion. Tendons and joints need to be stretched and moved into all positions. The spine compresses from a variety of stresses; it needs to be stretched back into alignment. Make a little more "space" between the vertebrae and within the joints, as the yogi say. Stretching eliminates unhealthy tension you may not realize you're holding; it makes you more relaxed and calm. A stretched and neutral muscle can perform more work. There are two ways to loosen up: by stillness and by movement.

Yoga is the most comprehensive form of stretching, and it's also a core muscle workout. But we'll discuss general stretching first and then leisurely make our way back to yoga.

My favorite stretch is to lean forward, legs bent, normal stance or wide, back curved with the middle highest, then relax and let gravity pull your back apart. Or "Head forward, butt back!" as the avant-garde yogi say. My second favorite is to have the legs slightly bent and let the head and arms hang down forward relaxed. This stretches the back too though not as much, and also the neck and shoulders. Relax and enjoy the feeling of stretching.

If it's uncomfortable you're going too far. That's counterproductive because it triggers the stretch reflex, which pulls you back and causes tension and stress -- exactly what you're trying to eliminate. But sometimes pain is good. I do these extreme wrist movements where you bend the wrists down as far as you can (90 degrees) and rotate your hands in a circle, wrists bent the whole time. This is significantly uncomfortable during the movement but the wrists feel so loose and wonderful afterwards for several hours that you know it's good for them. Experience will show which "uncomfortable" stretches are good and which are excessive. If you feel better afterward they're good.

Many people speak of "release points". Stretch slowly until the resistance rises and hold it there. Thirty seconds, one minute, two minutes -- the experts disagree -- but thirty seconds minimum if it's your main stretch of the day. Maybe the stretch point will "release" after a time and you can go farther to the next resistance point. Maybe that one will release too. Your tendons can stretch very far; bending as pretzels like the yogi is supposed to be the norm, not the exception. Everybody can be flexible like a gymnast unless you have something abnormal like a fracture or scar tissue. But stiffness builds up if you don't use the extreme positions, and you have to give it time to reverse. Go slowly, at whatever pace your body says.

Here's my standard stretching routine that I do before workouts. I don't do all of these every time but I do most of them. Some advocate doing this morning and evening.

• Calves: This works best on a fence made of horizontal pipes. Stand with the balls of your feet on the lowest pipe. Grab a higher pipe with your hands and push your heels down. If no such structure is available you can use the edge of a step, but you need something to press your hands against to get the full effect.
• Quads: Lie down, grab an ankle and pull it back so your knee is fully bent, find the foot position that maximizes the stretch in the quads.
• Hamstrings: sit, leg straight forward or in V, try to touch your toes while pulling your toes toward you. Don't worry if you can reach your toes; this depends on the length of your arms vs your legs. I can reach farther wearing soft wrestling shoes than with sneakers for some reason. You can also do this by lying on your back, leg up, yoga strap looped around your foot, pull the strap. The strap acts like a longer arm.
• Back:
  • Spider stretch: Sit with your left leg forward at a 90-degree angle, so it's pointing forward then right. Swing the right leg straight back if you can. Put both hands on mat outside the legs. Lean forward as low as you can. Reverse legs and repeat.
  • Hang from a chinning bar, feet touching the ground only if necessary to keep from stretching too far.
  • Stand in a roman chair and let your feet hang down in the air.
  • Lower back: Lie on back, kick legs up and behind so feet touch ground behind head. If strain on neck is too great, plant arms on ground to absorb some of the weight. One guy I know ends by rolling diagonally around face onto shoulder and rolls out flat like a fish (prone), but I can't do that yet. This a traumatic stretch for me, I can't breath well in that position and my abs cramp up, so I don't do it often.
• Back crossover: Cross knees, place opposite arm against frontmost knee, use that as leverage while you twist back sideways. I don't know what you call this.
• Back thigh: Lie on back, pull one leg toward you by bending knee and clasping hands on lower leg. Other leg relaxes flat.
• Inner thigh: Find something moderately high to step on; the back of certain crosstraining machines works well. One leg steps onto it; other leg stays on ground. Lean in to stretch the inner thigh. Or do a standard groin stretch by pulling the lower legs in while bending the knees outward, but I find these hard on the hands to pull the lower legs with enough force.
• Glutes: While doing the inner thigh on the crosstraining machine or other platform, turn foot sideways so knee bends outward, and lean in again. Now turn foot sideways the other way. I have to avoid putting pressure on my ankles with this. Or if no platform is available, stand, bend knee outward, raise leg to top, and lean into it to stretch the glutes.
• Outer thigh: Sit on a bench, rest one ankle on the other knee, and lean forward while gently pressing your outer knee down with your forearm.
• Abs:
  • Lie on stomach, raise upper body only like a sissy push-up, but lock arms straight and hold. Called the "cobra" or "upward-facing dog" in yoga; I'm not sure the difference.
  • Lie on back. Stand a moderate weight (25 pounds) on its edge on your abs, on one side of the belly button only. Let gravity press the weight into your abs. Wait several seconds, then move the weight to the next section, and keep going around till you eventually make an entire circle around your belly button. Or have a partner press his fist into your abs, the other hand on top to reinforce it. If you don't feel significantly more relaxed afterwards, you're not doing it right.
  • Lie face up on a large ball.
  • The Triangle: Sit on your knees, thighs straight up. Lean back with your back straight, like a triangle. You want to touch your head on the ground behind you if you can. You're also supposed to lie your feet flat, but the front of my ankles hurt when they stretch so I keep my feet bent the normal way and dig in with my toes. That puts a lot of weight on my toes but it's better for me. After doing this a few days I can straighten my feet when I'm partway down. This another traumatic stretch for me so I don't do it much.
• Neck: For an easy stretch, let neck hang down each of the four directions and circle around. For a moderate stretch, push with your hands. For an advanced stretch, stand head down in an inverted V, with only your head and feet touching the ground. Stretch your neck all four directions and roll your head around in a few circles. This is a very common wrestler's stretch. If that's too much, you can drop your elbows to the ground to absorb some of the weight.
• Biceps: Stand, put arm straight out with fingers around a vertical pole or against a wall. Some freestanding weight storage racks have a suitable pole sticking out the top. Stretch around to straighten the elbow; it will also get the fingers and wrist.
• Chest: Holding the same vertical pole, bend elbow so it's pointing behind you, push forward as if to push the pole down. Make sure the pole is sturdy!
• Rear delts: Grasp arm in front of you above elbow, pull it towards you, toward the opposite side of the chest.
• Triceps: With both arms up over head, grasp arm above elbow, pull it back and down.
• Shoulders and rotator cuffs: I do the first two before every shoulder and back workout at least. They stretch the tendons, which help you lift heavier and move more without injury. Use a light weight to avoid overstretching the tendons.
  • Lean on a bench, holding a very light dumbbell (10 pounds) in your outer hand, letting it hang straight down. Rotate the arm in circles, starting tiny and getting wider and wider. Relax: this should use almost no muscular force, let momentum move the weight as much as possible. You're stretching the shoulder tendons, and this has to be done lightly.
  • Move your arms back and forth in the three rotator-cuff positions. I can't describe them in words. You can use light dumbbells (5 pounds) if you wish. Again, you're stretching tendons, so go easy.
  • Hang from a horizontal bar like a chinning bar. Feet can touch ground with as much weight as necessary to keep shoulders from stretching too far. I do this in between exercises when my shoulders start to hurt. For variation, hang from a lat-pulldown bar or triceps-extension bar so arms are at angle rather than straight up. I do this all the time while exercising. You can also "hang" from a freestanding structure or vertical pole, but make sure it's stable! (Once I pulled a side-delt machine down while doing this, and it landed on my foot.) Another important shoulder stretch to do before every upper-body workout is to swing the arms around in an entire circle several times, either weightless or with a light (5-10 lb) weight.
  • Reach behind your back like an arm-bar, and have a partner gently push your arm to intensify the stretch. Sometimes you can find a diagonal pad (like the one used for one-arm cable bicep curls), lay your forearm on the pad in the same direction it would be behind your back, and lean into it.

Stretching and deep breathing is also a good way to relax when you can't sleep. Remember to rotate the neck and shoulders in circles. Rotating the neck feels like a nice massage, and rotating the shoulders can help with "sore shoulder syndrome". Some people (e.g., jiu-jitsu artists) also rotate their knees and feet in a similar manner before practice.