If you have been following my stretching trip, this is the part where it starts to get interesting. Later establish a routine, I have been starting to think if I am stretching in the most effective way or not. Recently, I tried some new techniques.
As I go along, I try to think of stretching the same way I would think of strength training or any other aspect of fitness that I understand pretty well. If someone wants the most “optimal” strength training routine, I’d say relax for now, get used to it, and be consistent. It’s not a good idea to get too excited about any method or guru who claims to have all the answers; most likely they won’t.
and there is a batch of gurus in the world of stretching. Many of them will benefit from making flexibility sound complicated (because then you need your programs to guide you). that does not mean their techniques are bad or wrong, but when I see this kind of thing in the strength or cardio worlds, I know that complexity is superficial. So I’ve been reading up on different types of flexibility and mobility training and trying to figure out what’s worth listening to.
The difference between active stretching, static stretching and other types of stretching
You would think that there is only one or two ways to stretch. But there are, in fact, many—and the defenders of each will argue that their way is the best. The definitions of each do not always agree, leading to even more arguments. So I’m going to give you a rundown of some of the more commonly used terms and what you should know about them.
- static stretching is when you hold a stretch for a while (say, 10 seconds or more).
- dynamic stretch it’s when you move in and out of a stretch, or you can think of it as actively moving through a range of motion. This is done as an active stretch; for example, kicking or lifting your leg while running.
- passive stretching it is when you place the part of your body in the position in which you would like to stretch. You are using props, gravity, immovable objects (like the floor), and/or a partner to get into position.
- loaded stretch is when you use a weight or force to stretch further (for example, holding a dumbbell while leaning forward as if to touch your toes)
- ballistic stretch it’s when you bounce to stretch, temporarily forcing your body into a more stretched position than you could passively or actively achieve.
- active stretching it’s when you use your own muscles to get into position to stretch. You are contracting the opposite muscles to the ones you are trying to stretch.
- isometric stretch it’s when you contract the very muscles you’re trying to stretch.
If you try to figure out which type of stretch is “best,” you’ll go down a very, very deep rabbit hole. I’ve spent the last few days on contortionist blogs and in the depths of Google Scholar, And I can’t promise that I’ve figured it all out. There seem to be advantages to each type of stretch (even ballistics), and most people who train for flexibility use more than one type.
How to do PNF stretches or “PAILs and RAILs”
Once again, trying to stick to common sense instead of finding what is most optimal, I opened the textbook I used when studying for my personal training certification. He explains a type of “advanced” stretching called PNF, for proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation. This is one I have often read about, but have never seen in the wild.
The technique I tried is the one that is supposed to be the most effective but also not for beginners. (Did I let that stop me? No.) It’s called “hold-relax with agonist contraction.” And man, it fucking works. If you want to try this at home, I advise you to do some reading first and make sure stretches and contractions are both friendly, like no more than a 5 out of 10 intensity. They’ll still work this way, and you’ll reduce the chances you’ll be sore the next day, or worse, tear a muscle.
The PNF stretch is usually described as something a coach does to an athlete; but I thought, why not use the same techniques on myself? With the above caveat in mind, here’s how I’ve adapted some of my regular stretches to take advantage of PNF technology.questions:
- I held the stretch passively for about 10 seconds (ie normal stretch).
- I then did an isometric contraction of the muscle I’m trying to stretch, pushing that leg (or whatever) against my hand or an immovable object like the floor. This was also 10 seconds.
- I then used the opposite muscle to stretch deeper and held it for about 20 seconds.
For example, in a toe stretch: I reached down to the ground, then grabbed the backs of my ankles and contracted my hamstrings as if trying to pry them off my hands; then I reached the floor again and this time used my abs, quads and hip flexors to stretch deeper. What do you know, now I could touch the floor with my whole fingers instead of my fingertips. The results were very similar to the toe-touching video we discussed in a previous post.
Then I did the same thing with a front split/kneeling stretch. I’m not, as you may remember, anywhere close to being able to do a split. So I did 10 seconds of the stretch, then for 10 seconds I dug my front heel and back knee into the ground, like I was trying to get up. Then, for the final step, I used my leg muscles to push myself deeper into the stretch. This one was weird – my hip flexors relaxed as expected, but my hamstrings just hurt. It was as if they were saying “We have done enough! Be careful with us! So I calmed down.
The last one: a standing quadriceps/hip flexor stretch. This is the one you see runners do where they stand on one leg and hold the other heel near their butt. I did the stretch as usual for 10 seconds, then grabbed my ankle and tried to pull my foot and knee forward (engaging quads and hip flexors). So I contracted my butt and hamstring to bring my heel further back and—yeah—I was able to easily touch my butt with my heel, where I hadn’t been able to do that in the first stretch. I took a video of this, which demonstrates the technique quite clearly (note that the video is 4x speed):
It wasn’t until after doing this that my rabbit hole dives led me to something called PAILs and RAILs (which stands for forward angular isometric loading and backward angular isometric loading). First you passively stretch, then you do a PAIL contraction, then you do a RAIL contraction. This tends to be a favorite technique of the kind of people I mentioned who seem to overcomplicate their explanations, and I had been saving this for later discussion. But then I saw someone say that PAIL and RAIL are the same as PNF, and my gosh, you’re right here it is a five minute video featuring the exact same stretching technique as my previous video, stretching the same muscle group, except they hold the initial passive stretch for two minutes instead of 10 seconds, and there’s a lot of extra stuff on top of pads, a bench, and a stick and you stretch the entire side of your core, or whatever . Does that extra material help? Maybe. But the basic principles seem to be the same as in my standing stretch.
Why PNF stretching works
Stretching isn’t just about how far your muscles can be stretched; it’s also about how far your nervous system will be let they stretch. Stretching techniques like PNF address the nervous system factor.
The first body system we’re tapping into here is called autogenic inhibition. Muscles work by pulling on bones, and the tissue that connects muscles to bones is called a tendon. Inside this tendon are microscopic sensors called Golgi tendon organs. The traditional explanation is that when a muscle (for example, one of the muscles that makes up the quadriceps) pulls too hard on its tendon, the GTOs tell your nervous system to relax so it doesn’t pull the muscle off the bone.
The real story is probably a bit different, as you can trigger this phenomenon even with a gentle stretch (remember, we only need a 5/10 stretch here). But that’s why PNF causes you to contract the muscle you’re about to stretch. This makes your body want to relax that muscle. You immediately go back into the stretch and boom, you can relax that muscle more.
The second step takes advantage of a different mechanism, called reciprocal inhibition. Here, the contraction of one muscle tends to cause the opposite muscle to relax. For example, when you use your biceps to do dumbbell curls, your triceps have to relax and lengthen. So in this type of PNF stretch, after using autogenic inhibition to get the quads to relax a bit, contract the hamstrings to get the quads to relax even more.
There is research to suggest that a PNF stretching routine may be better for long-term flexibility than simply doing static stretching. The dramatic increase in range of motion you get from a PNF session only lasts a few minutes, but if you continue to do it consistently, over weeks and months, you should be able to get further and further into the stretch.
So now I have PNF stretching in my routine. I use them for one of my shoulder stretches, a hamstring stretch, a quad stretch, and an adductor stretch. I do three rounds of PNF contractions for each stretch, and then do the rest of my stretches in the usual passive way. I also only do PNF stretches every other day, tops; if I want to stretch on my “off” days, I’ll do a passive stretching-only routine.
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