What determines how flexible you are?

Flexibility is essential for on a regular basis actions, from bending all the way down to put in your footwear to turning your head and even strolling upstairs. With out ample flexibility, these motions develop into far harder to execute. In the meantime, athletes like ballet dancers and gymnasts push their flexibility to the boundaries with a view to entry a extra excessive vary of movement.

Given that individuals exhibit totally different levels of flexibility, that raises a query: What elements decide how versatile you’re?

Flexibility is an intrinsic property of physique tissues that determines the vary of movement achievable with out damage at a joint or group of joints. That is based on a definition developed by kinesiologists at Dalhousie College and offered on the thirteenth Worldwide Convention on Biomechanics in Sports activities. They word that, past muscular tissues and connective tissue, one key issue that determines flexibility is how an individual’s skeletal buildings all match collectively.

“Particular person variations in your innate flexibility could be fairly massive, with genetics enjoying an enormous impact,” stated Stephen Dunn, a bodily therapist and co-founder of Core Remedy and Pilates in Austin Westlake Hills, Texas. “Your flexibility is influenced by a wide range of genetically inherited traits, together with the construction of your joints, the size of your muscle fibers and the suppleness of your connective tissues,” Dunn instructed Reside Science in an electronic mail.

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We naturally lose some flexibility with age, stated Dunn. “This lower is introduced on by alterations within the tendons and ligaments that make up connective tissues, which lose their elasticity as we age,” he defined. Tendons join the bones of a joint to the muscular tissues that manipulate it, whereas ligaments encompass and assist that joint, limiting the methods it might probably transfer.

“Collagen and elastin are two proteins which might be important for preserving the elasticity and suppleness of our connective tissues,” Dunn stated. “Collagen formation declines with age, and the prevailing collagen stiffen[s] and turns into brittle.”

Different age-related joint modifications can impression flexibility, “akin to cartilage put on and tear, and sarcopenia or age-related muscle loss,” Dunn added. For this reason younger individuals are typically extra versatile than older adults.

Different elements, together with intercourse, additionally have an effect on flexibility. The feminine intercourse hormone estrogen will increase the quantity of collagen in connective tissue, which typically makes females’ tendons and ligaments extra elastic and versatile than males’, based on a 2019 examine within the journal Revista Paulista de Pediatria. Hypermobility issues, which generally have a genetic trigger and alter the connective tissues, additionally have an effect on flexibility, in that individuals with the situations present an extreme vary of movement of their joints.

How does stretching enhance flexibility?

older black woman wearing a pink long sleeve workout set and sneakers stretches on the floor in her home while wearing in-ear headphones

Based on a number one idea, stretching is believed to extend an individual’s tolerance to shifting by way of a wider vary of movement, moderately than altering the precise construction of their muscular tissues. (Picture credit score: Marko Geber by way of Getty Photographs)

In fact, along with one’s biology, bodily exercise additionally vastly impacts flexibility. A sedentary life-style may end up in stiffness and a lowered vary of movement, Dunn stated.

Flexibility could be improved by way of modifications in bodily exercise — for instance by adopting a constant stretching routine. The American Faculty of Sports activities Drugs recommends participating in some kind of stretching not less than two to a few days every week, or ideally day by day.

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Within the short-term, that means throughout a stretch and shortly thereafter, stretching lengthens the muscle-tendon unit hooked up to a joint and helps counteract stiffness that will have arisen from sitting in a static place. In the long term, on the order of weeks, common stretching is believed to enhance vary of movement by growing one’s tolerance ranges to stretching, based on a commentary printed within the Worldwide Journal of Sports activities Bodily Remedy (IJSPT).

Also referred to as the sensory idea for growing muscle extensibility, this concept means that the elevated extensibility, or stretchiness, of muscular tissues noticed instantly after a stretching session or after a number of weeks of standard stretching is solely resulting from modifications in sensation.

A muscle contracts when it’s first stretched as a result of the muscle spindles, sensors that detect modifications in muscle size, ship alerts to the spinal twine, which then talk again to the muscle, Dunn stated. That is as a result of stretch reflex, an involuntary protection in opposition to overstretching and potential muscle injury.

Via repeated stretching, nonetheless, “our neural system turns into acclimated to the stretch stimulus,” he defined, permitting the joint to maneuver by way of a larger vary of movement earlier than the stretch reflex prompts. That stated, individuals present variations in how a lot they will alter their stretch tolerance utilizing the identical stretches.

The IJSPT commentary says all kinds of stretching can improve flexibility. This consists of three various kinds of stretching: Static stretching entails extending a muscle to its restrict and holding that place in stillness. Dynamic stretching requires lively motion whereas extending a joint by way of its full vary of movement. And eventually, pre-contraction stretching entails contracting the muscle being stretched or its antagonist (the one which opposes its motion) earlier than stretching.

There’s additionally proof that eccentric contractions — throughout which a muscle contracts because it’s lengthened, like through the decreasing of a bicep curl — may help improve flexibility. Low-impact workout routines like yoga and pilates additionally interact these totally different modes of stretching and thus enhance one’s vary of movement.

This text is for informational functions solely and isn’t meant to supply medical recommendation.

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