The word stretching is thrown around a lot, especially amongst athletes, and avid exercisers. So, what does the word stretching mean when it comes to exercises, and why is it important? Webster Dictionary describes stretching as “a form of physical exercise in which a specific muscle or tendon is deliberately flexed or stretched in order to improve the muscle’s felt elasticity and achieve comfortable muscle tone. The result is a feeling of increased muscle control, flexibility and range of motion.” From its very definition, it appears that stretching is very important to do in order to maintain muscle flexibility, range of motion, and neuromuscular control, however, most people don’t do it. What is more surprising , even some of us who are physically active or regular gym goers, don’t really stretch as much as we should. The result can be devastating on the body, because it creates limited range of motion, inflexibility of the muscle tissues, instability, muscle imbalance, and unfortunately sometimes injuries.
Simply put, a stretched body is often a healthier body; and more often than not, a less injured body.
Four Types of Stretching
According to the American College of Sports Medicine, “there are four types of flexibility training modes. Three of these modes – static, ballistic, and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) – are considered “traditional” flexibility training modes (92). Dynamic flexibility training is becoming more common especially as part of the warm-up routine (31,66) to better prepare the body for competition. For the benefit of time, we are only going to focus on PNF stretching, since it is type that most of our clients want here at Joy of Life Fitness. However, we are all well versed in all four types of stretching, and can facilitate whichever is most appropriate for your body, based on your fitness needs and capabilities.
PNF STRETCHING, also called assisted-stretching, meaning one holds the stretch for a certain amount of time without moving that muscle or, group of muscles, and is an integral part of Personal Training which is offered by Joie De Vivre Fit to our clients. What is PNF Stretching you might ask, and how is it facilitated? The word PNF itself is an acronym for Proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. During a PNF stretching session, our trainers move a muscle or, a group of muscles to a particular range of motion, until the client feels a mild discomfort in the targeted muscle or, group of muscles, with no pain, and hold it for 15-30 minutes. That process can be repeated three or four times. It is worth noting that during a PNF stretching session, the trainer does not produce any force into the client’s body, all the trainer does is hold the stretch in place, in an attempt to help elongate the muscle. We let the client do all the work.