Develop flexibility: what happens to the body during yoga time and how to use it correctly
Sport And Fitness Health / / December 19, 2019
Why do you need to develop flexibility
Flexibility - the ability of muscles and joints to operate the full range. We are born with this ability, but in most cases lose it with age.
In the days of hunter-gatherer people every day carried out the required number of movements which supported the flexibility and health. Now we do not need so much to move, on the contrary, many people are forced to spend half a day in a sitting position.
Even if you are active, by the time you become an adult, your tissues lose 15% moisture and become less elastic.
Over time, your muscle fibers begin to stick to each other to form cross-links that interfere with parallel fibers move independently. The risk of injury increases.
Gradually, our elastic fibers bind to collagen connective tissue and become more stubborn and hard.
Stretching slows the dehydration processes, stimulating the production of lubricating fluid in the tissues. Cross-connections in the muscles are stretched, which allows to restore normal muscle parallel structure.
What we really stretch
Most physiologists believe that the increase in the elasticity of healthy muscle fibers are not the most important factor in increasing the flexibility.
According to Michael Alter (Michael Alter), author of the book "The Science of flexibility" in 1998, the individual muscle fibers can be stretched up to 150% of its original length before the burst.
This allows the ability to stretch the muscles to move in a wide range sufficient to perform the most difficult asana. This means that our muscles do not stretch limit.
There are two main scientific opinion about what really prevents us do the splits or touch the floor with his hands. The first school says that it is necessary to increase the elasticity of the connective tissue, the second school says about the training of the nervous system.
Role of connective tissue in the development of flexibility
Connective tissue is a big part of our body. It forms the intricate network connecting all parts of the body, and dividing them into separate anatomical structures: bones, muscles, organs, and so on.
In a study of flexibility, we will refer only to the three types of connective tissue:
- Tendons. They are used for power transmission, connecting muscles and bones. Tendons have great tensile strength, but they are sensitive to stretching. Stretching the tendon by only 4%, it is possible to break it or lengthen so that it can not return to its normal position.
- Bundles. It can safely be stretched slightly more than the tendons, but not much. They connect the bones in the joint capsule and play an important role in limiting the flexibility. Usually advised to avoid their extension: it can deprive the joints stability and increase the risk of injury. That is why my knees to stretch very gently.
- Fascia. This is the third type of connective tissue that is much more important for the development of flexibility. On fascia 41% of the total resistance to movement.
Let's apply this knowledge to one of the basic asanas - pashchimottanasane. It leaned forward in a sitting position. It stretches the muscle chain, which begins with the Achilles tendons, lying to the rear legs and pelvis, and then extends to the spine and ends at the base of the head.
As a rule, in the classroom, this yoga pose is simply fixed on a time - 30 seconds or longer. While holding the posture instructor corrects pupils and encourages them to breathe deeply and evenly.
This practice allows you to change the quality of connective tissue plasticity. Long-term posture cause permanent healthy changes in the fascia linking your muscles.
Gudmestad Julia (Julie Gudmestad), a physical therapist and certified Iyengar yoga instructorIf you hold the pose for long, there is a pleasant feeling of muscle stretching. But this does not necessarily lead to the structural changes that will increase flexibility.
Posture should be maintained for 90-120 seconds to change the basic substance in the connective tissue. Base material - a fiber-free gel-like substance, which contains connective tissue fibers - collagen and elastin. That it stabilizes and lubricates connective tissues.
As the nervous system affects the flexibility of the development
At the stretching of connective tissues in the majority of work directed to the inclusion of yoga neurological mechanisms, due to which reduced or stretched muscle. One of such mechanisms - mutual (reciprocal) inhibition.
Whenever one muscle group (agonist) is reduced, the function of the autonomic nervous system causes stretching opposing muscles (antagonists). For millennia, yoga uses this mechanism to facilitate stretching.
In order to test the principle of reciprocal inhibition on yourself, sit at the table and gently push the edge of his hand on the table. If you touch the triceps on the back side of the shoulder, you will notice that it is stressful. If you touch the opposing muscles - biceps, feel that he is relaxed.
In pashchimottanasane work the same mechanisms. When you tense the quadriceps, hamstring, and relax a little bit, you can deepen the pose.
Why can not stretch spurts
Physiology, nervous system recognize the major impediment to the development of flexibility, it is believed that the key to overcoming the constraints is another function of the nervous system - the stretch reflex.
To understand what the stretch reflex, imagine how you go in the winter. Suddenly you step on the ice, your foot starts to leave. Your muscles are included in the job, straining to regain his feet in a stable position and regain control. What happens in your nerves and muscles?
Each muscle fiber has a network of sensors - neuromuscular spindles. They run perpendicular to the muscle fibers, keeping track of how much and how quickly lengthens the muscle fiber.
When the fibers are elongated, muscle spindles feel stress. When stress occurs too quickly, or lasts too long, the muscle spindles send the SOS emergency neurological, activating an immediate protective contraction.
That's why most experts warn against jerks during stretching. They quickly stimulate muscle spindles, which cause a reflex contraction and increase the risk of injury.
Slow static stretching also causes a stretch reflex, but not as dramatically. When you are applying forward in pashchimottanasane, neuromuscular spindles in the back of the thigh muscles causing the resistance, creating tension in all muscles that you are trying to stretch.
That is why improving the flexibility of using static stretching takes time; it takes place over a slow preparation of the muscle spindles. You teach them to withstand greater tension before you turn on the back reaction of the nervous system.
How to improve the stretching, training stretch reflex
Recently appeared in the West neurological techniques that train the stretch reflex, increasing the flexibility of quickly. One such technique is called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, PNF).
To apply to the PNF pashchimottanasane, try the following:
- lean forward slightly less than up to the maximum tension;
- strain hamstring muscles, trying to push them into the floor;
- hold voltage for 5-10 seconds;
- then relax and try to deepen the asana.
During the back surface of the thigh muscle contraction removed the voltage from the neuromuscular spindles, so they send out signals that further stretching safely.
If you cut and then stretch the muscles so you will find that you are much more comfortable to be in a position that you think its stretching maximum only a few seconds ago.
As breathing helps in stretching
Communication between relaxation, stretching and breathing is well known and recognized both in yoga and in Western science. Physiologists explain this dependence neurological movement and breathing, known as synkinesis - involuntary muscle contractions that accompany any motor act.
Consider this as an example Paschimottanasana. When you breathe in, the muscles become more rigid, making it difficult stretch. The abdominal cavity is inflated like a balloon, making it difficult to incline forward.
Exhale blows the lungs and diaphragm picks up - in the chest. This frees up space in the abdominal cavity, so that it becomes easier to bend in the lumbar spine and tilt your chest closer to the hips.
In addition, the exhale relax the back muscles and the pelvis tilts forward. In pashchimottanasane muscles of the lower back feel passive pressure.
When your lungs are empty, and the diaphragm is drawn into the chest, the back muscles are stretched and you can bend in its deepest position.
Place the palms on the back and start breathing deeply. You will feel the muscles on either side of the spine that tighten when you inhale, and relax while exhaling.
If you pay attention, notice that each breath activates the muscles around the tailbone, at the bottom of your back, gently moving your hips back. Every breath relaxes the muscles and relieves the pelvis, allowing you to curl up in the hip joints.
Hard rapid method development flexibility
Maybe you've seen the picture B. TO. FROM. Iyengar in mayurasane (peacock posture) on the student back in pashchimottanasane. Or a teacher standing on the hips student in baddha konasane (butterfly position).
Such methods can be dangerous for beginners, but they are extremely effective and are under the supervision of experienced instructors striking similarities with the best practices of Western flexibility training, aimed at restructuring the neurological mechanisms.
Sometimes during the stretching occurs physiological response that enables suddenly stretch out much better than usual. For example, after years of stagnation suddenly completely do the splits.
It is a neurological switch that suppresses the stretch reflex. While the stretch reflex causes muscle tension, switch, known as myotatic inverse stretch reflex, completely relieves muscle tension, to protect tendon.
How does he work? At the end of each muscle at the point where it joins the tendon, there are delicate bodies that monitor the load - Golgi tendon organ. These bodies react when each muscle contraction or expansion creates too much pressure on the tendon.
Paul Tsatsulin, Russian expert on flexibilityCheck yourself: lift the leg on the back of a chair. If you can do it, you have enough stretch to do the splits.
However, the use of this mechanism is quite risky. To enable the Golgi tendon organ reflex, the muscles must be under extreme pressure in the fully extended position.
The use of these techniques requires the control of an experienced teacher, who will be able to build up the position of your skeleton and determine what your body is strong enough to withstand such stress. If you do not fully understand what you are doing, you can easily get injured.
Ancient or modern science technology
A good teacher will be sure to tell you that yoga - it's not just stretching.
Judith Lasater (Judith Lasater), physiotherapistYoga - a discipline that teaches us differently perceive the world. So that we can give up your attachment to suffering.
According to Lasater, there are only two postures: the conscious and the unconscious. In other words, what makes asana posture - is awareness, not just a change in body position.
However, stretching is also important for progress in yoga, because the plastic body of the practitioner will allow him to better manage energy - prana. And there is no contradiction in the use of analytical findings of Western science in-depth empirical knowledge of ancient asanas.
B. teacher TO. FROM. Iyengar, perhaps the most influential in Western Yogi Hatha yoga has always encouraged scientific research, advocating the use of strict guidelines for the improvement of physiological practices refined asanas.
Maybe you are a supporter traditional yoga and believe that ancient techniques in order to develop flexibility and get all the benefits. But perhaps adding wisdom of the East discoveries of Western science, you will be able to advance further in their practice.