In your opinion is stretching and or lengthening muscles the same or different ?

[saevel25]

4 minutes ago, Denny Bang Bang said:

But it’s not actually longer, it just has an increased range of motion 

I will not say because I am not 100% certain. All I have posted is information I have found. 

[jamo]

Maybe a dumb question, but if your muscles got longer ... where would they go?

[JCrane]

On 11/20/2017 at 11:48 PM, Alx said:

As a disclaimer I wont bother with techinal terms for this. 

 

Exessive stretching puts the muscle in an elongated or "full rom" state. Basically its as long as the muscle can get without tearing. More rom sounds pretty good eh? What could go wrong?

The problem is that when the muscle is stretched to this point it doesnt have the same ability to stretch anymore. So that tightness people are so keen to get rid of is actually the muscles inherent stretch reflex that protects the muscle, tendons and ligaments from tearing. The muscle is designed to stretch first to protect everything else. If you live a sedentery lifestyle and that stretch reflex isnt used it can tighten up too much but even then youre best off doing dynamic stretching because thats how the muscle is supposed to work in the first place.

This principle is why it isnt recommended to do static stretching before a workout. So really you shouldnt attempt to increase the static rom as much as the dynamic rom.

 

great insight thanks

[JCrane]

some very knowledgeable posts here

 

[Denny Bang Bang]

3 hours ago, JCrane said:

great insight thanks

Agreed, and probably most important in @Alx’s post is bringing up the tendons and ligaments as well.  The tendons and ligaments play a larger role in flexibility than the muscles.  Excess cross bonding/creep (whether due to injury, inactivity, etc.) is probably one of the biggest culprits resulting in lack of flexibility/range of motion.

 

3 hours ago, jamo said:

Maybe a dumb question, but if your muscles got longer ... where would they go?

That’s a good point.  The muscles are elastic (although I don’t believe entirely), and are connected to tendons (which are not elastic).  If the muscles got permanently longer (beyond just when force is applied), it would cause issues with contraction and stability.

Edited November 23, 2017 by Denny Bang Bang

[JCrane]

9 hours ago, Denny Bang Bang said:

Agreed, and probably most important in @Alx’s post is bringing up the tendons and ligaments as well.  The tendons and ligaments play a larger role in flexibility than the muscles.  Excess cross bonding/creep (whether due to injury, inactivity, etc.) is probably one of the biggest culprits resulting in lack of flexibility/range of motion.

 

That’s a good point.  The muscles are elastic (although I don’t believe entirely), and are connected to tendons (which are not elastic).  If the muscles got permanently longer (beyond just when force is applied), it would cause issues with contraction and stability.

great points !  I hope more people read your posts and get a better understanding of how it all works.Thanks for your input 

[Alx]

On 11/23/2017 at 5:20 PM, jamo said:

Maybe a dumb question, but if your muscles got longer ... where would they go?

They stay where they are but they just have more relaxed rom . Stretching can change posture and adjust orientation of a joint.

Edited November 28, 2017 by Alx