Mestre Marcelo Caverinha

In continuation with my last post, I will address some more aspects of stretching. This time I will talk about muscle isolation. I will apply this to both injury prevention and flexibility.

First, muscle isolation is a misnomer. I use this term to describe ways to stretch individual and groups of tendons, ligaments and muscles. Which one of these are you actually stretching at any one time? No one really knows. Still, I use this term for simplicity.

I will start with an example. Our camara Virtual talked to me about a sore muscle that had been bothering him for a while but he could not stretch it. Every time he tried to stretch, other muscle groups got in the way. These muscle groups would pull tight before he could pull the sore muscle tight. He asked me if I knew how he could stretch the muscle. I did not know. However, I did know how to stretch muscles close to it. I had him use a normal stretching technique that stretched muscles near his injury. By slightly adjusting the position of his body and relative positions of his torso and legs, he was able to pull the sore muscle tight and stretch it. In other words, he was able to isolate the sore muscle. This is what I mean by muscle isolation.

To be more specific, his injured muscle was on the outside of his hip, just above and in front of the ball and socket joint of his hip.

When he tried to stretch is gluteus muscles (butt muscles) the stretch did not reach his injured muscle. This stretch is done by placing the outside of one ankle of one leg on the top of the other leg’s knee and pulling that knee towards your chest. This was ineffective at stretching Virtual’s sore muscle. By pushing the other knee away from his chest and turning his torso towards the stretched muscle group, he was able to stretch the sore muscle instead of the gluteus groups. (Don’t try this if you are reading this at your office now, especially if you are wearing a skirt.)

I went through this same process with a shoulder injury last year. It was just a matter of finding how to stretch those muscles and then stretching them routinely. One behavior that helped was doing this stretch after exercising the injured muscle group. The increased blood flow caused the muscles to be more tight and supplied oxygen and nutrients to the injured area.

This relates to stretching for flexibility quite well. Most people want to kick higher or be more flexible with their legs. The mistake most people make is that they try to gain lateral flexibility by just spreading their legs as wide as they can and pushing hard. This technique is mildly effective. This is because lateral leg flexibility requires that you stretch a lot of muscle groups all at once. Though it may hurt, you are pulling on too many groups to be really effective.

The best way to increase lateral leg flexibility is to isolate the tightest muscles and just stretch them. You basically stretch each muscle one by one by only stretching the most tight one. This is sort of like divide and conquer.

Rather than just spreading your legs to the sides and trying to drop to the floor, you should just spread your legs moderately wide. Before you feel any tension, just change the angle and direction of your pelvic bone. You can bend one knee slightly to get a better angle and pull one groin muscle tight. Once you have stretched this muscle, you can switch to another one. Just remember to stretch evenly.

Another tip I have is what I call isometric stretching. Interestingly enough, the Merriam Webster American English Dictionary provides one
of the following definitions: of, relating to, involving, or being muscular contraction (as in isometrics) against resistance, without significant shortening of muscle fibers, and with marked increase in muscle tone.
Rather than increasing muscle tone, isometric stretching involves muscular contraction to increase flexibility. Basically, once you isolate a muscle, flex (contract) that muscle for a better stretch.

It hurts a little more but it is a really good stretch. I suggest that once you isolate a muscle and stretch it, that you contract that muscle for ten or more seconds. When you release it, it will be more flexible and you will need to pull it more taught by shifting your body’s position. I recommend repeating this process three or four times to achieve a maximum stretch before moving on to another muscle group.

I hope this was clear enough. Please post comments and I will try to respond to your questions.

Lagartixa

Whether you are stretching for flexibility or health, there are a few main elements to keep in mind. The most important of which is self-awareness. Self-awareness does not just mean knowing whether something hurts; it is much more holistic. While stretching, remember how tired you are, how much you have exercised, what exercises you did, etc. These, as well as other factors, should affect the way you stretch. Self-awareness also means that you should understand what you body is telling you. The most important factor is pain, which unfortunately is a necessary part of stretching. It is important to understand the difference between good pain and bad pain. For example, stretching an injured muscle will feel different from stretching a healthy muscle. Stretching a healthy muscle and “over-stretching” a healthy muscle feel different too. I can not tell you the difference in feeling, so it is up to you to develop this sense.

Tangential to self-awareness is body temperature. Your flexibility changes with your body temperature and the amount of physical exertion you have completed. I am sure most of us know that stretching when you body is cold and when you have just finished a workout is different. I really want to accentuate that point here because many people still do not take this aspect seriously when stretching – especially those people who are trying to build flexibility.

It is OK to stretch cold (when you have not exercised), but stretching at that time is different from stretching after a warm-up or workout. If you are stretching cold do not push yourself too much. Stretch your ligaments, tendons and muscles until they are tight but you should not make them hurt. Stretch slowly, do not bounce, jerk or pull tendons or muscles taught suddenly. Stretching cold is a good time to isolate tendons or muscle groups. By making subtle adjustments to your body’s position you can stretch different groups. If you have an injury, even a little one, this is a good time to find it and stretch it, carefully. Stretching cold is NOT an opportunity to increase flexibility. It is a time to build self-awareness and prevent injury.

Some people really like stretching cold before a workout, but I recommend stretching after a warm-up, if not a workout. Scientific studies show that stretching cold does not reduce the chances of an exercise related injury during a work out. I suggest you warm-up first and then stretch. The warm-up gets your blood flowing and increases your flexibility. Stretching afterwards allows you to reach your current flexibility limits and prepares you for more exercise later. It is important to remember that a warm-up should warm up all the parts of your body which you are stretching. If you warm up your core (torso, chest, stomach) and then stretch your Achilles heel, you might as well stretch cold. A warm-up should warm up either your whole body or at least the parts of you body you will stretch.

I personally like to stretch after a workout for two reasons. First, it is the best time to prevent injury through stretching and a good warm-down. Second, it is the best time to increase flexibility. The studies I mentioned before say that stretching after a workout does significantly reduce the chances of exercise related injury. I strongly believe this. Post-workout stretching is also a good time to stretch an injury. (But please do so carefully.)
There is a very specific reason post-workout stretching is different from stretching after a warm up. After sustained exercise for a fixed amount of time (most experts say 20 to 30 minutes) your body starts to produce a type of chemical called endorphins. These are essentially your body’s natural pain-killers and are chemically similar to heroin and the neurotransmitters that are released from its use. In addition to the strong blood-flow created by the workout, these endorphins make stretching really effective. Basically, they just make you hurt less. The increased blood-flow and natural stretching you did during the workout has already pushed your body to its natural level of flexibility. As a result, any stretching you do during this time brings you to your limit and is much more comfortable than regular stretching. Thus, stretching to prevent injury is easy and more effective than any other point in your routine.
Some may think that the pain alleviating effects of the endorphins might cause you to stretch too far. This is not likely. Even though stretching may hurt less after a work out, you can still pay attention to the different types of pain. Though reduced, the pain from healthy and unhealthy stretching should feel distinctly different.
This brings me to stretching to increase flexibility, which I highly recommend that you do after a workout. This largely due to the same reasons stretching for injury prevention is good to do after a workout. When you have a heroin-like substance racing through your body, I suggest that you go to town on your flexibility. But always remember to stay self-aware in order to prevent injury from over-stretching.

I should mention how this affects Capoeira class formats. When conducting class, teachers have to take a lot of factors in to account. Stretching is important but it is not the only factor that goes in to planning a class. Instructors will integrate stretching in to class as it best suits the situation. If the room is cold and no one has warmed up before class, an instructor will start with stretching or a warm-up and then stretching. If it is the middle of summer and everyone has energy, the instructor might just skip stretching altogether. One of the problems we face frequently is the end of class. We always want to push students to learn more material, play in the roda longer or do extra push-ups. That usually means that we miss stretching or that when the roda ends, most people are already cold and stretching is not helpful. If you want to stretch, for any reason, after the workout you can do a little warm-up after class and then stretch. The endorphins stick around in your body for at least 30 minutes. You can get warm, and use the endorphins.

As always, I recommend that you come to class early to warm up and stretch a little. This makes it easier to start class and get to the more interesting part of class.

That is all I am going to write for now. Please let me know if you have any more questions.