increase flexibility

The other kids used to laugh at me in high school P.E. When you’re a kid, you’re supposed to be flexible, but I never was. While everyone else was easily putting their foreheads on their knees, I couldn’t even touch my toes.

And when I started rowing on the crew team in college, my coach yelled at me nearly every day to stretch my tight hamstrings that were sabotaging my technique and slowing the whole boat down.

Stretch I did, but no matter what I tried those tight hamstrings just wouldn’t let go. What little flexibility I gained from a session of good ol’ fashioned static stretching usually disappeared in a few hours or days, leaving me just as stiff and tight as before.

My legs wouldn’t even go straight because my hamstrings were so tight, keeping my knees permanently bent.

Fast forward to today and while I wouldn’t claim to be the most bendy person in the world, I can stretch my legs out in front of me, fold forward and put my head squarely on my knees with my fingers comfortably wrapped around my feet.

Ahhhhh…I can’t even begin to tell you how good it feels to be loose and limber. But that’s beside the point. What I want to share with you is the technique I used that finally got my hamstrings to let go – and it definitely wasn’t just “stretch more.”

Best of all, you can use this technique to increase flexibility in just 30 seconds. Don’t believe me? Keep reading and see for yourself.

Hamstrings are actually three large muscles that originate at the base of your pelvis on the ischial tuberosity, or sits bone (these are the two sharp bones in your butt that get quite sore when you’ve been sitting on bleachers for a long time).

The muscles travel down the back of the leg and attach below the knee joint, making these guys a multi-joint muscle. They both extend your hip (think ballerina doing an arabesque) and flex the knee (i.e. curl your heel up behind you). Hamstrings are the antagonist to your quadriceps, the four large muscles that run down the front of the leg. Antagonist means that they do exactly the opposite movements, so your quads flex your hips – that’s why they’re known as hip flexors – and extend your knee. Think kicking your leg straight out in front of you.

And speaking of, if you can’t extend your leg out in front of you, you’re a victim of tight hamstrings, especially if your back hunches over like Quasimodo when you try to do it. Likewise, if you can’t straighten your leg at the knee, your hamstrings are tight, and probably your gastrocs and soleus muscles as well (the muscles of your calf).

Fortunately, I have a quick fix for you. You see, it’s super important to remember when trying to increase flexibility that your muscles are plenty long enough. It’s your nervous system that’s freaking out, thinking you’re going to tear something or go to far into a stretch and not have the strength to get back out. You have to teach your brain to chill out a little.

The pain or pulling you feel when you stretch a muscle is actually something called the stretch reflex – your nervous system is telling the muscle you’re stretching to contract so it doesn’t get over lengthened, so, in essence, you’re fighting yourself. But, if we use a little trick called proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF), we can override the stretch reflex and safely gain a few inches of flexibility relatively quickly.

This video shows you how to apply PNF principles to your hamstrings, and you’ll see the dramatic results you can get with just 30 seconds or so of stretching this way…

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I know you’d like to improve your flexibility. I hear this from my clients all the time! So far, I’ve showed you how to increase your shoulder flexibility, how to use fruit to keep your muscles limber, and given you 7 strategies to increase your hip flexibility. But we haven’t yet talked about the physiology behind flexibility, and understanding how your muscles work is crucial to maintaining a healthy, limber body for the rest of your life.

Most of my clients are making the same mistake when it comes to increasing flexibility. They diligently attend yoga classes, do pre- and post-work out stretching routines, and even get plenty of massages. They just don’t understand why they’re not seeing results! It seems like they might make a few initial gains, but after a couple of weeks the body just plateaus and they don’t experience any additional flexibility.

Well, here’s the reality: It’s not the length of your muscles that determines how far you can stretch. In reality, you’re just as flexible as the yogi who can tuck his foot behind his head.

Impossible! you say. I know it might seem that way, but consider this: A 70 year-old man whose muscles are so tight and restricted he can barely bend his legs to walk up the stairs goes into the hospital for surgery. This is a man who can’t even touch his toes! The nurses put him under anesthesia in preparation for the surgery. Now they have to be extremely careful moving this man because his muscles and joints are so loose they can easily dislocate something!

Fast forward to post surgery when the anesthesia wears off and the man wakes up…he’s back to his original range of motion. What the heck happened?!

Clearly it’s not the physical restriction of the muscle that’s preventing this man from tucking his leg behind his head – the nurses could have easily manipulated him into this position under the extreme relaxation of anesthesia.

So, why is he so immobilized?

The truth is, it’s his neurological make-up that is keeping his muscles tight and tense. You see, every muscle has a “set point,” a point at which little tiny sensors in the cells send a message to the brain insisting that if the muscle is extended any further, it will tear. This is called the “stretch reflex,” and it initiates a contraction in the muscles.

That’s where you experience the limit of your flexibility. Simply pulling on your muscles is inefficient for increasing flexibility unless you plan to stay there long enough to override the power of your stretch reflex – way too long for most people’s patience.

Instead, you have to reprogram your nervous system into allowing your muscle to stretch a little further. Strength plays a part in this. If your muscle is weak, your nervous system will protect it by not allowing it a very large range of motion. Strengthening your muscles in their FULL range of motion is crucial to healthy flexibility.

If you’re unsure of how to start reprogramming your neurological wiring, start by simply taking the muscles and joints through a full range of motion several times. For example, if your ankles have limited range of motion, balance yourself against a wall or chair and hold your foot in front of you. Point your toes toward the ground and then lift them toward the sky, repeating 7-10 times in each direction.

This takes all the muscles along the front and back of your lower leg through a full range of motion and sends a signal to your brain that you need to be able to use your foot this way. With repetition, you’ll notice more freedom in your ankle joint (if done daily, you should notice a difference within seven to ten days). It also retrains muscles that may have become “frozen” in a shortened position.

Ida P. Rolf – founder of the Rolf Method of Structural Integration – always said, “When flexors flex, extensors extend.” This means that when you contract muscles on one side of a joint, the muscles on the other side need to lengthen. Repeated mobility exercises train your body to move in this healthy manner.

The same strategy can be applied to any area of your body that you would like to see increased mobility and flexibility. Move only one joint at a time to start.

Tight Hamstrings? Try This Hamstring Stretch to Increase Flexibility in 30 Seconds or Less…

Why stretching won’t increase flexibility