I read Charlie Weingroff’s blog post 2 days ago that was called Putting Manual Therapy Into Perspective (make sure you read it, as it is one of the most enlightening thing I’ve read recently).  For those who might not know Charlie, he is one of the smartest minds in this business and he has a unique perspective on things (I guess that’s what happens when you put physical therapy, strength and conditioning, powerlifting and manual therapy in the same person!).  That being said, Charlie was discussing different manual therapy options in his blog post and when each one might be appropriate.  The part of his blog post that really caught my attention though is the first part where he explains why we lose mobility in the first place.

Muscles are rarely, if ever, short.  When a muscle feels stiff, it’s not necessarily short and it definitely doesn’t automatically means that you should stretch it.  Stiffness can be created for many different reasons, and sometimes the cause of the problem may be somewhere else. For those who’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you know that I’m a big advocate of stretching, so that might sound confusing coming from me, but bare with me you’ll understand why I’m saying this (because it is not ALWAYS appropriate to stretch).

One other thing to understand is that a muscle that feels tight might be short, or it might actually be long.  This might be a complex thing to understand, but here is a simple example: think about someone in an anterior pelvic tilt.

When your pelvis is tilted forward, your hamstrings are going to be put on a stretch.  Because of that, your hamstrings might feel stiff and if you use a straight leg raise to assess their length, they will most likely test short.  But if you think about it, in this specific example, your pelvic position is what causes your hamstring to test short.  If the pelvis is reposition correctly with appropriate strategies (read: not stretching your hamstrings), your hamstrings will get some slack and they most likely won’t feel stiff anymore (or less stiff).

This is just one example of why muscles that feel stiff might not need to be stretched.  Another reason might be when muscles get stiff as a protective mechanism or a compensation pattern.  Never forget the brain-muscle connection and its importance, especially when it comes down to “stiff” muscles.  Your brain might send the signal to the muscle to stiffen up because there is something going wrong around the area.  This might happen to prevent a muscle to overstretch or that might even prevent you from pulling a hammy or a quad while you sprint or play hockey or whatever else you’re doing.  And when you’re performing a task at high or near-max intensity, your body will always compensate in the easiest way possible.  And unfortunately this is not something we have control over; your brain is the boss and he’s the one sending the signal to the muscles if they should activate, stiffen, shut down, etc.  So you can stretch all you want, but the muscle in question will never loosen up.

This is why assessing and addressing imbalances is key.  It’s really important to address the underlying issues to whatever problem one might have.  If you don’t, you might be studying for the wrong test.  You can stretch a muscle all you want and it’ll always feel tight.

This is really just the tip of the iceberg when talking about short/stiff muscles and the implications of stretching and how the brain has so much control over what’s happening.  And there are so many other things to consider.  Hopefully that opened your eyes a little bit on how stretching stiff muscles might not always be the solution to everything.

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Unless you have been living in a cave with no internet access for the past 6 years, you have probably heard of Eric Cressey before.  Eric is one of the industry’s leaders in strength and conditioning.  He is a well established coach, writer and business guy as he’s been owning his own facility for the last three years and has been coaching thousands of athletes in different sports.  Eric is also an accomplished lifter himself as he used to compete in powerlifting and he still deadlifts well over 600 pounds to this day.

Eric is also a VALUABLE source of information with all the material he’s written.  I would recommend all of his articles and products to anyone trying to become a better strength and conditioning coach.  To say that I have learned A LOT from Eric during the past few years would be an understatement.  Here is just a couple of things I have picked up from him lately. Enjoy!

1. Taking care of shoulder health is more than just strengthening the rotator cuff.

If you want to have healthy shoulders, you obviously need to take care of them in your training.  If you do some stretching and some strengthening exercises for the rotator cuff and think it’s taken care of, well, the sad truth is that you are leaving out a lot of very important factors that play a huge role in shoudler health.  Here is a list of all the things you should consider when working with people with bum shoulders or when trying to keep shoulders healthy:

1. Soft-tissue quality (primarily pec major and minor, levator scapula, scalenes, lats and rotator cuff)

2. Scapular stability

3. Thoracic spine mobility (in extension and rotation)

4. Range of motion at the gleno-humeral joint

5. Tissue length of the following: pec major and minor, levator scapula, lats and biceps.

6. Rotator cuff strength

7. Hip and ankle mobility of the opposite side (as the shoulder have fascial connections with these 2 joints)

8. Breathing patterns (as breathing through your chest instead of your belly can lead to over stressing muscles like the pecs and scalenes)

As you can see, there is a lot to address to prevent/treat shoulder injuries, and these factors happen to be even more important when dealing with athletes from sports like baseball, swimming and basketball, as these athletes put tremendous amounts of stress on their shoulders.

2. Soft tissue work and flexibility work go hand-in-hand.

Almost everyone by now knows that tissue length and tissue quality are of paramount importance to stay away from imbalances and injuries.  But did you also know that these 2 need to be combined for optimal results and lasting changes.  Once you work on your soft-tissue quality, whether it is with foam rolling, ART, Graston or just good ol’ massage, you should work on tissue quality right after.

Once you have removed the adhesions (or knots) in your muscles, doesn’t it make sense to stretch them right after, before you have new adhesions/knots reappear?  In fact, right after soft-tissue work, your muscles are more pliable and less resistant to any change in length, so you should take advantage of that time to “re-educate those tissues on how to deform properly” as Cressey put it himself.

3. Get out of those high heels!

Wearing conventional “high heeled” sneakers with a lot of cushioning and support around the ankles are probably the worst thing you can do to your feet and ankles.  It limits your range of motion at the ankle (especially in dorsiflexion) and it modifies the way you walk and run as you don’t have to absorb ground forces as much as all the padding in the soles is doing the job; your feet are basically becoming lazier.  You are also losing a good amount of proprioception in your feet as they are separated from the ground by a 1-2″ cushion.  And as Cressey said it himself: “…wearing sneakers has really screwed up the way people run, and in my opinion, has caused the exponential rise in injuries among distance runners.”  That doesn’t mean we should all ditch our sneakers, but I think we should definitely make better footwear choices.  Nike Frees, Puma flats and Vibram Five Fingers are all better options as they keep you closer to the ground.

Although not yet socially acceptable, this is probably the best footwear choice you could make!

Doing more barefoot stuff (like warm ups and deadlift) in our training is another way to go as it will reestablish proprioception in our feet.

If you’re interested to learn more from Eric Cressey, I would suggest you check out his website and sign up for his FREE newsletter!