Make flexibility your mantra
LOOK AFTER YOURSELF: GET OUT OF THAT OFFICE CHAIR
The poorer the motion, the greater the risk.
The hot topic of the week has definitely been flexibility. When we talk about flexibility we always associate this with the inability to touch one’s toes. The stories either go that you have never been able to touch your toes or once upon a time you were as supple as play dough. But is flexibility really that important for your health and sports performance and is it a myth that you can improve your flexibility? Let’s take the hamstrings for example. There are several factors that could play a role in why you can’t touch those piggy wigglies. Inside your muscles there are fibres that allow for contractions which is the shortening of the muscle and then relaxation which is the lengthening of the muscle. These fibres have a limit as to how far they can contract or extend. Your muscles are attached to tendons which often take the
brunt and strain from movement or exercises that go beyond the range the muscles feel comfortable with.
Let’s say a ball was kicked over the neighbour’s fence and lands at your feet. You step back, take a run up and kick the ball with all your might. The neighbour appreciates you returning his son’s ball but your hamstrings are screaming at you for doing such a stupid thing. You reach for your hamstring and hold it because of the sudden sharp pain that comes from that region. You shake it off and limp back to the braai.
What has happened to you is that by kicking the ball, you added a greater range of motion than your muscles were comfortable with. You then added velocity and impact with the ball. Your muscles have a split-second to deal with all of this and on top of that, they have not been warmed up properly. It also doesn’t help that your flexibility is not as great as it used to be.
This simple act of kicking a ball back over the wall has now earned you a trip to the physiotherapist who works hard to restore you back to your former glory. This could have been avoided if you simply looked after yourself, limited yourself from sitting at a desk all day and focused on quality flexibility training.
The principle of the kicking of the ball applies to all body parts. You might not have kicked a ball but you might have tried picking your toddler up from the floor and hurt your lower back or you might have tried swinging at the fly about to feast on your braaivleis.
Whatever it was, your flexibility and range of motion (and quite possibly strength) was not up to normal measure.
For athletes, flexibility is the single biggest factor in determining risk of injury; the poorer the range of motion in relation to sporting norms, the greater the risk. If you add in poor strength, imbalance and instability, then you are literally a ticking time- bomb waiting to explode.
Flexibility for everyone is critically important for health, sanity and your sport. It is not something that you do once or twice a week but focusing on flexibility should become part of your lifestyle, your mantra or your day-to-day of things.