Just like the cat, I was taught to stretch in my sports and athletic endeavors. What I didn't know is what happens when you stretch a muscle. Neurologically, your muscles actually recontract after they've been stretched in the manner most of us were taught.
... and I used to stretch for 2 hours per day to alleviate my chronic pains living with Fibromyalgia. Was I merely exacerbating the issue? Hmm. Now that I have been there and done that, and now Live Pain Free. I found a newer way so foreign to what I was I taught that it took me awhile to get used to it, well actually to learn it since I was wedded to the concept of stretching.
Your spindle cells which are informed of a stretch quickly send the message to the spinal cord and back to the muscle in a monosynaptic reflex, like when the doc hits your knee with a hammer. You'll react and kick the ... out of ...
Afterwards, the muscles will re-contract since they have a set point, which is good so your limbs don't go flying off of you, yet they will become tighter if you "try" to stretch-which I know is what a lot of us did... and I still see some people do... do you think he realizes how much his hammie is contracting?
So What's the Alternative? Pandiculation.
Somatics or Somatic Education as it is formerly known is a mind body approach and the term was coined by Thomas Hanna, who wrote the book Somatics, as the body experienced from within.
How about if we employed our brain and did the opposite of stretching?
Instead of working in your spinal cord, what would happen if you approached this from say using your motor cortex, which is where the process begins, that is the process of pandiculation.
When you learn a movement, it all begins in your brain. After you've learned it, the info gets transferred to your cerebellum so you can walk and chew gum at the same time. Of course, you have muscular reactions in which the signals are muscle to spinal cord and back just like getting the hammer above.
Normally we operate at the brain stem and reactive levels and don't really go to our motor cortex that often, once you got it, you got it. Your muscles go all day and night too receiving messages to contract. So how does stretching change the signal? I don't know since you are generally going for more range and thus "stretch" to neurologically shorten yourself which allows your muscles to become weaker, according to some researchers.
The Somatic approach goes the other way around or more like this, you generate more contraction by increasing the output from your brain and then controlling and thereby reducing the output when you're done. No need to hold on for a length of time... your motor cortex which can reset the resting level of your muscles does this rather well.
So stretching is just information from the spinal cord to the muscle whereas if you change the output from the cortex, you LEARN something valuable, and then the transfer happens and you go out and notice the difference.
Since it's learned, you are inhibiting unwanted muscular contractions, those you don't really need to do the job... unless you like to move with extra effort. With just a few reminders, you begin your movements from a more relaxed position.
Since your muscles are subject to either your voluntary or involuntary mechanisms, you can operate from a place where you are already contracted or from a place where you are more relaxed and can create that relaxation. The choice to lengthen your muscles is yours, conscious or unconscious... to stretch or not to...
Engaging yourself and your muscles in a learning process allows you to coordinate your movements effectively... and since neurogenesis is all the rage... here it is applied.
Your brain learns, adapts and it grows through awareness ...
You can think about it ...
... Or you can Pandiculate Instead using a Somatic approach to lengthening your muscles Instantly.
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