Tight vs taught
A client came in yesterday and told me that she and her friend (a former Serious Strength client) were chewing the fat about diet and exercise. Her friend is a Pilates instructor.
I asked her if she knew why her friend no longer trained with us. Was is cost? Convenience? Our lack of handsome trainers?
None of the above. And we are all VERY handsome.
The answer – the former client felt that the strength training was making her tight.
The sad part about her answer is that it is untrue. She gave up the single greatest exercise modality known (strength training) because she was feeling taught and strong and her joints were becoming more stable.
But because she has spent so many years unknowingly feeling weak and living with unstable joints due to this weakness, she was unable to tell the difference.
Example: If an ex-ballerina starts to strength train properly she will, little by little begin to lose her turnout. What her turnout actually is an overstretched, unstable hip joint. Strengthening the hips and thighs will rectify this but at the same time make her less extendible. This is better.
Muscular flexibility is a misnomer. There is no such thing as muscular flexibility. And it’s not semantics – it’s fact.
Muscles do not flex. I repeat – muscles do not flex. Joints flex. Muscle fibers contract and lengthen. When you stretch a muscle you do not increase its length. The length of a muscle is fixed, origin to insertion. It does not change by stretching.
When you stretch a muscle you simultaneously stretch the joint. What changes is the ligament if you stretch it long enough over time. And when this happens, it is essentially permanent. Ligaments have little blood flow so when it is stretched it stays that way. This is bad.
As our muscles get weaker and weaker with age, our joints become less and less stable due to the lengthened ligament and often is the cause of many orthopedic ailments.
Strength training creates stronger muscles and improves joint stability. This sometimes causes a person to feel tight and inflexible but this feeling is an illusion.
