One of the biggest things that limits a person’s performance is “tightness”. It’s frustrating, but even more frustrating than that is stretching doesn’t always fix it. I am a HUGE fan of mobility and of maintaining mobility with things like stretching. It is so important. But if you are tight and you’ve done all the stretching and mobility work you know to do, maybe the issue is not a tight muscle. Typically, once these people make it to my office, digging in with my thorough assessment reveals to me that their issue is a STABILITY problem requiring strengthening, not a MOBILITY problem requiring lengthening.
Hang with me!
Your calves are tight. Your hip flexors are tight. Your hamstrings are tight. These things are NOT in your head! What we should do is ask ourselves why. Sometimes muscle groups are not able to withstand the load you are placing on them. A weak muscle is easily overloaded. They don’t have the capacity tow withstand the load we place on it and the symptom of tjat is tightness. When we isolate the “tight muscle” and test its strength it will often either fail the muscle test or intensely cramp. My clients are always surprised to find this.
So what do we do?
We strengthen, functionally and progressively. This means our strengthening not only isolates the muscles that feel tight, but it looks most like your regular activity. Load is also increased overtime. Before long, you’re able to achieve the movement you’ve been trying to for a while without feeling limited by tightness.
If you’re dealing with chronic tightness, do take a step back, ask yourself why it may be, and try some isolated strengthening of those muscles. If you have questions, feel free to give me a shout!
Dr. Rachel Atufunwa PT, DPT