Stretching for Your Health with Dr. Michael Brandon DC

There are many well known and accepted small things each of us can do everyday to help our overall health in significant ways, and for the most part, the basic understanding of each is well understood. We all know that moderate exercise, keeping hydrated, and eating a variety of fresh unprocessed food is simply smart decisions for our long term well being. Getting into the habit of practicing each regularly is often a major barrier for most of us. This all holds true for stretching as well. We all know its something that we should do, but that alone hasn’t helped the majority of the population achieve accountability to do it. Why should we stretch, and what are the benefits? What is the best way to stretch? How long should we stretch for? Are there methods and times that we should avoid it?



Let’s first get to the why of stretching. Aside from the obvious factor of it helping us become more flexible by increasing our range of motion, it also helps prevent injury for both the avid exerciser and sedentary individual alike. When a muscle gets tight or knotted, it becomes shorter. A shortened muscle doesn’t have the same amount of power, strength, and endurance as a fully elastic and pliable muscle. So keeping with a strict stretch regiment will help full athletic performance.



Even if you don’t consider yourself an athlete, or aren’t currently competing, you want to be able to activate a muscle through its entire ROM. If you look at the exercise of a squat, the goal is to come down to where the knees and hips are at least 90 degrees and then blast upward using predominately your quadriceps. If you don’t use the full ROM, the muscle fibers that are activated in the lower position will never get the strength increase and activation, which will lead to muscle imbalances and may cause it’s own slew of issues and injuries.

Static held stretches is what we are most accustomed to, such as the hamstring stretch where we are standing and flex forward as if reaching to touch the floor. As with any stretch the goal is to keep it held at a minor discomfort but without causing any pain. There’s no debate on the fact that this works in terms of helping general flexibility, but the questions arise for when it should be performed and for how long.



Growing up participating in sports like many of us, I was accustomed to doing a few static stretches for 10 to 30 seconds prior to engaging in a sport’s practice or competition. Recent literature suggests that this may not be best, and could in turn actually increase the risk of injury. When we hold a stretch, even for a few seconds, we aren’t just stretching the muscle, but also everything that is surrounding it as well such as the blood supply in arteries and veins. During a stretch, our muscle begins to have a limited blood supply and “cools” off by becoming ischemic (lacking of oxygen). The last thing we want is to perform a good stretch, and then get up right away to activate muscles that hasn’t had a blood/oxygen/nutrient supply which will predispose yourself to a sprain or strain. Back to the taffy analogy from earlier, we don’t want to deprive the muscle of oxygen and blood flow prior to doing any sort of activity, which is going to require soft and maneuverable muscle tissue such as exercise. So in this case, it may be recommended to stretch at a time of rest, meaning not just prior to doing physical activity, or at the very least, do another dynamic warm-up post stretch.

Do you feel like your whole body is tight, sore, and need to learn more about stretching? Have you been trying to stretch but haven’t seen the results you desire? If so, schedule an appointment with Functionised today for your musculoskeletal examination to help put you back on track for a happier, healthier, and more flexible you.


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