Is your impression and concept of stretching still stuck in "the more painful the better"? In the stretching area of the gym or yoga classroom, we often see many people stretching with frowning or painful expressions, and some even find partners to stretch in pairs because they can't bend over or open their thighs. These are our existing misconceptions that the more painful we are, the longer we stretch out. In fact, overstretching can cause muscle damage and even reduce the softness of the body, which can be said to be counterproductive.

Is your impression and concept of stretching still stuck in "the more painful the better"? Don't overstretch. We need to stretch. The main purpose is to relax our muscles. However, if we overstretch, it will make it difficult for tight muscles to stretch. On the contrary, we will stretch slowly through appropriate strength, and the tight muscles will slowly relax in this process, so that the muscles can stretch smoothly and improve their elasticity.

However, whenever our body feels pain in daily life or during exercise or stretching, the sympathetic nerve in the autonomic nerve of the body will naturally start, and the motor neurons around the collision or stretching site will change their excitability, which will lead to muscle tension. In addition, pain is often accompanied by muscle tearing or bleeding. Therefore, as long as the muscles are nervous, bleeding or tearing, it is easy to cause blood flow obstruction, that is, blood circulation deterioration.

Paired stretching seems to be no problem, but it is easy to cause injury because of muscle resistance. Simply put, if we feel pain after stretching, our sympathetic nerves will be excited, which makes it difficult for our muscles to stretch and relax. Even if you stretch comfortably with a little pain, there will be some negative effects. Paired stretching seems to be no problem, but our muscles will subconsciously produce resistance, because the other side will forcibly stretch and compress, which will easily cause the fiber of muscle tissue to break.

In addition to the above, when our muscles are pulled, our bodies will involuntarily contract reflexively. This reaction is a kind of "posture reflex" produced by the human body in order to maintain the correct posture, also called "traction reflex". This reflex action is also not conducive to muscle stretching.

When stretching hurts, sympathetic nerves will enter an excited state, making it difficult for muscles to stretch and relax. The wrong stretching will be counterproductive. If you ignore the pain during stretching, you still want to stretch your muscles to the extreme by your own willpower, which may cause muscle laceration, tendon rupture or joint injury. Generally speaking, there are many sports that need excellent flexibility to function, such as Japanese sumo wrestlers or gymnasts. Players in these sports will have a certain stretching and warm-up process before training. In the past, these stretching and warming-up processes caused excessive exertion due to traditional and wrong ideas, which caused permanent sports injuries to many players' muscles and forced them to give up the sport.

In short, only by taking a gentle and slow relaxation method, there will be no so-called pain-producing force in the process, and the muscles can be relaxed and stretched correctly and safely. Don't believe the wrong idea that the more painful the lacing, the better the effect.

Reference //verywellfit, menshealth

Editor//David