Use It Or Lose It

Stretching/pandiculation is a way to modulate pain. All pain has an inflammatory component. When you have a reaction to pain, you get a contraction of the muscles. This is because they are responding to the injured tissue. When we feel pain, we restrict, tighten and try to stabilize as a response to the trauma. My personal experience with clients over the last 30 years, is yes we should stretch/pandiculate and move when we are pain. The reason being, if we don’t use it, we will lose it.

Clients with shoulder injuries, knee, hip and back problems did not return to the studio for over 12 months during the on and off times of covid. They actually not only lost range of motion in the joint, but built other compensation patterns on the body. The body is designed to move. If you do not move the body you will lose the flexibility, mobility and tonicity of the body as a whole. There is also a mental/spiritual side to stretching. It elongates and works with mindset, breathing and of course moves our organs too.

Natural Stretching

Now if we look at animals in the wild, such as cats, there is a rest period prior to the stretch. Stretching is an instinctive behaviour for cats. It connects to their physical needs, emotional state, and even their social interactions. If you’ve ever noticed your cat stretching after sleeping, during play, or even when greeting you at the door, you’re seeing a natural and beneficial activity in action. Humans are actually much the same, just we have become so dumbed down with processed foods and sedentary life that we have lost our intuition and natural ability to feel.

Bibliography

Cat Stretching: Why They Do It and What It Means | Fulton County Veterinary Clinic

 

We have three types of tissues:

  1. Tonic – Postural/stability/Aerobic they can work for long periods of tome but have low threshold motor units. This means they are easily excitable, they also want to stabilise the body during dynamic movement.
  2. Phasic – Fast twitch, they have a high motor unit threshold and consume alot of energy. Therefore, whenever you have trauma/abuse/under use or over use of tissues , you will activate your tonic muscle fibres. This is a guarding or protecting mechanism.  When ever you have pain in an area, there will be constriction because the elevated muscle tone reduces circulation the rough the area which causes metabolic waste which leads to acidosis or an acidic build up in the tissue. This can go further irritate and traumatise the tissue and cause the development of trigger points. Meaning this can then send pain to regions of the body and trigger further problems. When you have reduced circulation, you are decreasing blood flow in oxygen and blocking removal of waste which cause the pooling of metabolic waste and irritates the surrounding tissue. Therefore, stretching can be used intelligently to bring blood flow, oxygen and nutrition in.