How does stretching work? What does it do to the human body?
In: Biology
Stretching improves efficiency across the range of movement you already possess. Technically your muscles don’t really get that much longer – I mean, pull your finger and see how much longer it gets? Similarly, someone who does yoga should have hamstrings pooling out the back of their leg if muscles really got *that* much longer through stretching.
The feelings of stretching is called the stretch reflex, and your ability to be with that feeling is your stretch tolerance. The stretch reflex is produced by your nervous system and is essentially warning you not to overdo it. You could trigger the same feeling if you were to slip on ice – it would inspire a contraction to prevent over-stretching.
When you breathe consciously, you calm down your nervous system, and that calming effects calms down the stretch reflex response. It’s less that your muscles are getting longer and more that the feeling is being toned down.
Stretching is thus really hard to study because it doesn’t have the same measurable electrical forces like muscle contractions. We don’t even know what an optimal amount of stretching is – how long, what frequency, whatever.
But it definitely plays a role in tissue maintenance and pain management, since stretching and conscious breathing is a natural analgesic (pain alleviation).
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