Bye, Bye Traditional Stretching! Here's A New Way.....

Traditional stretching typically involves targeting a single muscle or muscle group. For example, the hamstrings, quadriceps and hip flexors.

BUT there's a fundamental flaw in this reasoning, and it's a big one!

The brain isn't capable of only moving 1 muscle in total isolation from any others. Movement happens in patterns, involving multiple muscles. 

That's why traditional stretching techniques only have a temporary effect on stiffness or muscle tension. Most people notice that they feel more mobile for a couple of days after stretching, but then the old aches and tightness come right back.

That's why I've moved away from traditional stretching and towards dynamic and pandiculation stretches. I also teach joint mobility, developmental movement patterns and creating, then de-creating stress reflexes.

Here's a traditional static hamstring stretch:

Hamstrings are one of the most common muscles that people complain feel perennially tight, no matter how much or how often they stretch them.

Here's a pandiculation stretch that also includes the hamstrings:

This stretch recreates the Green Light (Go-Go) stress reflex and a walking movement pattern.

The posterior muscles at the back of the body are tensed and then relaxed completely. By moving in a full body pattern it integrates the hamstrings as they might interact with other muscles in a more functional and realistic way.

This is the premise of pandiculation stretches. The muscles are taken into tension just a bit more than usual so you can feel that contraction, and then they are relaxed completely.

This helps the brain to become aware of those muscles when they're contracting, and to feel them relax. Once the brain becomes aware of those muscles again, you regain conscious control of those muscles so if they do get tense, you can relax them again and they don't get stuck in continuous contraction, feeling tight and sore.

Thomas Hanna referred to this phenomenon as sensory-motor amnesia. 

Many pandiculation stretches recreate developmental movement patterns that we had as babies, or the 3x stress reflexes - Green Light, Red Light and Side Trauma. The spine moves in 6x directions as it was designed to do: flexion, extension, rotation and lateral flexion.

Stretching in these normal movement patterns is safe, as long as you find non-painful ways to execute the exercises. The human body was designed by nature to move in this way, so pandiculation is a way of resetting the body back to when you were younger and didn't have all the accumulated stresses, aches and pains of adulthood.

Imagine being able to move as freely and fearlessly as you did when you were a carefree child!

In fact, pandiculation has been referred to as "Nature's reset button". Animals use pandiculation stretches several times a day to keep their bodies mobile so they can eat, move around and stay alive. 

Remember, if you can't feel it and you're not aware of it, you can't change it!

Pandiculation techniques help increase self awareness of how your body and muscles are feeling so you can better self-regulate their state.

Good (exercise, excitement) and less desirable (grief, frustration) stress are a part of life. Including pandiculation stretches into your routine helps you to avoid getting stuck in these stressful states, so you and your body feel calmer with less tension and pain.  

NEXT STEPS

• Come to a Stretch, Yoga or Pilates class with me - here you can spend time observing how your body responds to different movements in a guided sequence of mobility exercises for the joints and core stability plus pandiculation stretches
• Book into the "Moving Away From Pain With The BYB Method", a 2 hour workshop showing you how to reduce chronic pain and release muscle tension so you can move with ease and joy again. Sunday 3rd September, 1pm to 3pm - click HERE for all the info (4x spaces left).
• Attend a half-day mind-body retreat - these are deeply relaxing, fun, social small group experiences typically held in various locations within easy reach of Worthing, West Sussex. The next one is on Sunday 3rd December,
• Subscribe to my email list to receive "The Movement Chronicle", a weekly e-newsletter delivered directly into your inbox every Monday morning,

To find out more about my classes and retreats, or to join my email list you can contact me via any of these channels:

• Email at norma.pearson1@ntlworld.com
• DM me on Facebook Messenger 
• WhatsApp message to 07801 867361.