If exercise is tearing our muscles why are we supposed to stretch after exercise-wouldn’t it just tear them more? And if so is it tearing in a different way than exercise is? Also why are we supposed to warm up a muscle before stretching?
In: Biology
Not sure this is a great answer, or actually answers your question. But exercising a muscle is the process of stretching it. There’s concentric contraction or shorting of the muscle, and eccentric contraction or lengthening of the muscle. In a bicep curl your bicep would shorten, and triceps lengthen as you curl up. Then your bicep would lengthen and triceps would shorten as you move down.
There’s dynamic stretching, or active stretching often used before exercise which can be beneficial for increasing mobility, getting blood flowing and increasing efficiency of your muscles. And there’s static stretching, positions held in one position for awhile, which can be used after exercise or on recovery to increase range of motion, and prevent soreness, decrease stiffness. I believe the difference in tearing would depend on the repetition and weight. In the case of exercise you are repeating the process of contracting and relaxing your muscles creating the tears. Hope this helps.
Exercising a muscles means that the weight is trying to stretch it while the muscle tries to hold itself together. This creates microtears because the muscle is struggling against the force that stretches it.
Normal stretching instead is less hard on the muscle, it’s simply pulling it at its extremities while the muscle relaxes.
Stretching can be a way to warm-up the muscle before exercise (dynamic stretching), and release lactic acid after exercise (static stretching).
When using any form of resistance training, take the bicep curl for example, you have the most muscle-building potential when you utilize a full range of motion (full-ROM). Therefore: stretching your bicep to its fullest length (in a slow, controlled motion) and contracting it quickly to its shortest position results in the best stimulus.
When you use this technique, you recruit as many fibers as possible, which tear (very, very small tears) in response to excess stress. This in turn requires even more fibers to be recruited, resulting in a slower contraction. You often see trainees’ reps slow down during their sets, and this is why! Finally, when the fibers can no longer move the weight you’ve chosen properly (with good form), the result is something called: “mechanical failure.” There’s varying evidence as to how necessary this is for muscle growth and/or strength gains.
In short: it behooves us to stretch our muscles as much as possible during repetitions, without injury of course, to activate as much of that muscle as we can. Hope that helps! 🙂
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