resistance stretching
- athlete performance benefits
athlete performance benefits of resistance stretching
If you think of your body as a living machine and your muscles as individual engines, large and small, all creating specific movement patterns, then you can think of stretching a muscle as tuning it up, allowing it to perform more efficiently and effectively. So increasing the flexibility of a muscle increases its functionality or performance, which translates into more power and endurance. Similarly, you can think of strengthening a muscle as making it a bigger engine, capable of creating more force. Most athletes already have strong muscles from years of training. But many also have very tight muscles which, due to lack of flexibility, are not functioning at their peak capacity or strength.
When I first meet an athlete, I often find his or her muscles functioning at about 50% of peak capacity. So they only have access to about half the force output capacity of their muscles. But simply by stretching a muscle and making it more flexible, you instantly increase its functionality and therefore force output and efficiency. The important point to realize is that:
- You can dramatically increase the force or power output of a muscle by stretching it.
- You make it a more efficient running engine, which has greater endurance and faster recovery.
And that’s a big part of what I do for athletes. I make their already well-trained, well-honed muscles stronger through stretching. And in the process I upgrade the biomechanical functioning of their body as I balance it out, allowing it to perform more effectively and efficiently, with greater control, endurance and recovery.
Some powerful benefits of more balanced structural biodynamics:
- A body that performs all movements with greater response, control, and ease.
- A balanced, efficient body creates more results with less work and energy expended.
- A balanced biomechanical machine is more robust, less prone to injury.
- A living, self-repairing machine has the chance to repair and heal any current injuries.
I help the body to do what it does best: perform, repair and seek balance.
