The Truth About Why Stretching Doesn’t Work and How It May Actually Be Hurting You…

Ever wonder why you feel the need to stretch CONSTANTLY but it never really seems to help? Or maybe it feels good at first but then a few hours later you feel just as tight and stiff as you did before? If you are looking for a long term solution to tight muscles and how to improve your mobility, you are in for a treat! In this post I explain exactly how to get to the root cause of tight muscles and how to finally address your pain and discomfort.

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Many of us have been told our entire lives that we should stretch before workouts to prevent injury and to improve flexibility. Yet many of us continue to have neck pain, tight low back muscles and hamstrings, which ultimately lead to muscle strains that can keep us out of the gym for weeks. So what do most people do? Book a full body massage.

While massages are great for relaxation and self-care, they often don’t get to the root cause of muscle tightness. If you don’t believe me, pay attention to how long it takes after a deep tissue massage before your muscles start getting tight again. So if stretching and deep tissue massage isn’t working, how do I prevent muscle tightness? I’m so glad you asked!

There are really a couple of different causes for muscle tightness. The most common causes are stress, injury, overuse, and nerve tension. So let’s take a look at each one.

Stress

When we experience emotional, mental, or even physical stress, our brain initiates the fight or flight response which is basically protective mode. The stress hormone, cortisol, increases and our nervous system is now on high alert, ready to fight back and protect.

A perfect example of this is how we may have a really stressful week at work or a deadline to meet, and all of a sudden our neck muscles get really tight and stiff and now we have some serious trigger points and crave a deep tissue massage. We can’t forget that each muscle in our body is innervated by nerves. So when our brain is stressed, our nerves and our muscles get stressed as well. Simply removing the stressful stimulus and getting a relaxing massage may fix the problem.

There can also be physical stressors. A perfect example is when you go to the gym and do squats with heavy weight and end up leaving with back pain. Squatting with poor technique: arching your low back too much, not using your glutes, and leaning too far forward can put unnecessary “stress” on your low back muscles causing tightness, stiffness, and pain. Simply improving your technique and strengthening the glutes, hamstrings, and core muscles, can stop the physical stress from occurring and now your low back muscles no longer get tight after leg day.

Notice I didn’t include stretching as a fix for low back muscle pain. Truthfully, if you were to stretch and get some relief, it would come back the next time you did squats. Addressing the root cause now allows you to continue your workouts without the extra time needed to stretch, or without needing to take time off because of pain.

Injury/Overuse

Often times, muscles can become tight to prevent injury. Your muscles may become tighter to provide the stability that your ligaments and joints may not have. Ultimately, this is a good thing when your muscles provide stability but can also be very painful and uncomfortable when your muscles aren’t strong enough to carry the load. This means you need to strengthen those muscles so they can adapt to the load needed to provide the appropriate amount of stability. All of our muscles should coordinate and work together to get tasks done. But when compensation patterns and awkward movements become the norm, it can be common for certain muscles to “takeover” and do all the work. The best thing you can do is be evaluated by a skilled physical therapist who can give you very specific and personalized tips on how to strengthen and improve movement patterns to address muscle imbalances and pain.

Nerve Tension

Lastly, if you know someone with sciatica then you probably have heard them talk about how their doctor has prescribed medication for nerve pain, or they’ve gone to a chiropractor but it only helped for a few days before the pain came back, or maybe they even tried a workout program but couldn’t continue because the pain was unbearable. In this case, if we only look at the muscles or movement patterns and continue stretching, we may actually irritate the sciatic nerve more without getting to the root cause.

Nerve tension just means that the nerve is not moving well in the body and essentially is “stuck” within a very limited range of motion. When the nerve becomes “stretched", our brain initiates a pain signal to protect which causes muscles to tighten more. This is why stretching can increase pain in the long run and doesn’t really address the root cause. The best way to solve this issue is to use nerve flossing as a technique to improve nerve mobility before we ask it to “stretch” to a length it is not capable of reaching.

Once we address the mobility and irritability of the nerve, we can then began to strengthen the muscles around it and correct movement patterns. This leads to longterm success and the ability to achieve pain free movement again!

Solution

So what exactly can you do to improve mobility before your workouts? If appropriate, use nerve glides regularly or warm-up by performing dynamic mobility exercises. These can include: air squats, lunges, high knees, butt kicks, or any other mobility exercise that promotes blood flow to your muscles, involves active movement, and isn’t a prolonged stretch. Dynamic exercises like these are the best way to encourage flexibility/mobility, address muscle soreness without sacrificing stability in your joints that can ultimately lead to injury.

Honestly, the human body is pretty amazing. It is pretty cool how learning more about how the body works as a system rather than trying to address one single unit can lead to long lasting relief! So, now you know exactly why stretching may not be the best way to address tight muscles and how it can actually be harmful if you don’t get to the root cause of your pain! Comment below what surprised you the most in this post! And as always, feel free to ask questions!