This one goes to...

One of the most memorable lines from the movie Spinal Tap is from the description of their amp:  “This one goes to 11.”  It’s funny in the same way that cutting a pizza into six pieces because we can’t eat eight is funny.  Just because we change the numbers doesn’t mean we change the total.

But, innumerate silly fools that we are, we do tend to think that one that goes to 11 is better than one that goes to 10.

 

Then along comes some reality and smacks me upside the head.  In stretching, not only do we not want to go to 11, we probably only want to go to about 5.  What the heck?

 

Let me explain.  Let’s say we’re stretching our hamstrings (because, let’s face it:  most of us need to stretch our hamstrings.).  (It is perfectly ok to test this out for real on our own bodies!  An activity!  Woot!)  We’re lying there on our backs with a strap around one of our feet and we begin to lift that leg up toward the ceiling.  The very first place we feel resistance is called R1.  Please note that resistance may not even feel like stretching.  It might just feel like the leg doesn’t really want to go.  If we keep lifting our leg up past that point, we get to a place where going farther would hurt.  This is called R2.  The space between R1 and R2 is the place where we should be stretching.

 

It turns out that if we gently move our leg back and forth between those two spots, we improve our range of motion.  In other words, we make the distance from R1 to R2 larger.  Pushing past R2 actually freaks our muscles out and they lock down and refuse to go anywhere ever again.  Not really.  But they do protect themselves by tensing up.  No more stretching for you, buddy.

 

Those of us who are used to pushing the edges of our stretches might not feel like we’re doing that much when we work in this space.  This is why it is good to try it and see.  I was surprised at how much more movement I could create by going gently.

 

So:  no pain means not only no pain (yay!) but also more gain.