Personal Trainer | Durham | Glenn Hill
A little bit about this blog, i am discussing the fact that some modern magic works better for stretching tight muscles than traditional stretching, Massage stretching or PNF.
My credentials to talk about this subject are:
18 years Army Fitness and being a physical training instructor
Sports Massage Therapist level 3
Master Personal Trainer
BodyMap Practitioner
(BodyMap is all about looking at functions like breathing, eyes, balance, spatial awareness and proprioception in order to take our brain out of threat/fear which improves all of our functions including flexibility and power -it's upstream thinking (in your brain) it works)
Let me tell you the story that suprised me too:
I have been training one of my PT clients who has tennis elbow and tendonitis of the shoulder, we have been doing a bit of running and lots of functional leg and core work. Our recent sessions have been very hard so i decided to take her through a BodyMap assessment and maybe some massage etc as a form of a full Body/Brain MOT.
I tested her spinal, hip and shoulder flexibilty and pain levels before going through the body map protocols. Within ten minutes she was 6 inches closer to touching her toes, spinal and shoulder mobility had improved hugely especially on 1 side. Pretty amazing really as we are not actually stretching anything just moving eyes, breathing and some other magic (it's a secret-ask Dax) .
The interesting thing here is i wanted her to get the extra inch to touch her toes so i reverted back to downstream thinking of pulling, bending, stretching etc. Lower limb/posterior chain massage, massage stretching )pin and stretch, PNF stretching of hamstring and fascia release techniques.
You would think that this has got the extra inch wouldn't you? WRONG
The process of painful sports massage and PNF looks to have put the client back into a state of threat/fear and limited her toe touch - posterior chain flexibilty hugely. She is now 5 inches from touching her toes?
So traditional methods of improving flexibility have actually reduced it after the initial BodyMap (your brain just giving you flexibility because it feels safe)
I have learnt a lot today about how your primary giver of mobilty and function (brain) hugley supersedes our attempts of stretching for flexibility and function.
Cool i would like to here your thoughts, questions on a Postcard...
Glenn ( Durham PT geek) Hill
Shortlisted on the National Fitness Awards 2014