If you have been stretching or doing mobility on some area of your body for months and nothing seems to be changing, then this video is for you. I wanna talk with you about the realities of trying to improve range of motion in the human body. And the huge misconception that most people have of I need to stretch the tissues until they elongate.
The fact is that improving flexibility, improving mobility is way more about the brain giving your body permission than it has to do with any changes to ligaments or tendons or muscle fibers or the fascial systems. Now, this has been discussed for many, many years, right? If you’ve worked with, any athlete, a gymnast, dancers, people that need extreme levels of flexibility, you know that they often start really young and it has just becomes a daily habit. But then in the fitness world, the rehab world, in the movement world, we have lots of people that say, you know what, I have restricted internal rotation on my shoulder or my hip, or I want to improve my hamstring flexibility because I really love yoga and I’m starting with certain posture. So people really spend still a lot of time working on flexibility and mobility.
Now what happens is that we have this idea because it feels as if when I’m in a posture and I’m getting a lot of stretch, it feels like what’s gonna make the difference is when those fibers, whatever is being stretched, eventually elongate.
But if you look at the research literature on this, it’s very hard for almost any fiber to elongate. And when they do elongate even over time and with extensive levels of work, the fact is that they don’t elongate very much. So how in the heck are people able to reach extreme levels of mobility and flexibility if they need those as a part of their activities?
Well, it comes down to how your brain functions. We’re gonna talk about this from a perspective of your brain giving neural permission. Now, if you are a doctor, a coach or therapist, you’re interested in this topic, increasing flexibility, improving mobility, and understanding it from a modern neuroscience perspective, please DM us on Instagram. Drop us an email in the link in the comments ’cause we’d love to chat with you because our job is to help high level elite practitioners bring more and more neuroscience than what they do because you know what? The brain is in charge of everything and we want to share this information with you.
Back to the topic of increasing flexibility, increasing mobility. What you need to recognize is that the current research literature says this, whenever I spend whatever length of time I spend stretching per day, whether that’s three minutes or 30 minutes, the reason over time that I am able to go to a larger range of motion is because my brain, particularly my brain stem, is enhancing what we call stretch tolerance.
So in other words, I get into a position, it’s uncomfortable, I spend time there, the brain goes, you know what? You’ve been there long enough. That’s becoming less threatening. It’s not as scary. And so when our brain feels like something’s not as scary, it takes the breaks off our performance levels. It changes muscular tone between our flexors and extensors at the brainstem level, and it begins to allow more range of motion.
And here’s the key, because it feels safe. If you want to dramatically enhance your results in working on flexibility and mobility, start thinking about how can I make the movement feel safer to my brain? Often when people are working on, like I said, mobility exercises, flexibility exercises, they’ll put themselves into very precarious positions that push right to the edge of discomfort.
And if you’re super healthy, fine, you can get away with a lot. But often in the rehab setting, we already have people who are in pain. We have people who have a highly threatened nervous system and we’re trying to improve range of motion and we’re getting them to a position and their brain’s like, I don’t know what the heck is happening here.
So lemme give you an example. Let’s say you have an older client. And they are for whatever reason, you’ve noticed that they have a lot of restriction in forward flexion. Yes, we could do kind of traditional flexibility exercises with them, and we might get them into a, you know, a light position and start doing a forward bend to stretch their calves or stretch their hamstrings or work on their flexion mobility, however you’re terming it.
But here’s the issue. Have you ever thought about their vestibular system, their inner ear? Do you know that whenever the head flexes down and whenever we change our level of head in relationship to gravity, that we’re inducing a lot of vestibular stimulation? So if their vestibular system, their inner ear is dysfunctional, and we ask them to get into a position that their brain is perceiving danger from their inner ear because it’s not a clear signal, well guess what?
They can be here all day and their threat level can just keep going up and up and up, and that’s going to result in them getting tighter. Less mobile rather than looser and more mobile. And I guarantee you, if you’ve been doing this for any period of time, you’ve seen this, people spending inordinate amounts of energy and effort to get more flexible and more mobile and actually not progressing and often getting worse when you see that.
It tells you that the brain is being threatened. So how do we solve that? Well, number one, we have to understand neurology. We gotta look at their eyes, gotta look at their inner ear. But at a very basic level, what could I do to make it safer? Well, if I’m working on some kind of hip flexion, uh, mobility or flexibility, maybe I can sit them in a chair and have, if I’m, I’m concerned about their inner ear ’cause they have a history of vertigo, I say, you know what?
I’m gonna get you in this position, but then I want you to grab onto the chair. I want you to hold on really, really tight. And what you may find is, I’m stuck. They grab, they get more stable. Stable means safer, and their brain goes, oh, okay. And they can go further.
Maybe they need more support around the local tissue. This is where if you were around for many years in, you know, the CrossFit community or whatever you’ve heard of, voodoo floss. You take a, you know, an elastic band, you wrap it tightly around the area that you’re working and you begin finding that you’re suddenly more mobile. Why? Sometimes the brain loves heavy pressure around an area that is being mobilized or stretched because it makes the tissues feel safer, and it’s also engaging a different receptor deep within the tissue because the pressure of the band.
That is a safety tool that you might be able to use. So you just have to start to think through if I have specific areas where I know I need more mobility, I know I need more flexibility. Stop trying to stretch the tissue, start making the brain feel safe. As soon as you make the brain feel safer in that position, all of a sudden you’re gonna see massive improvements and changes in what was previously seemingly, unfixable because it does not come down to lengthening tissues. It comes down to making the brain feel safer about the movement, right?
So again, if you’re a coach, a doctor, a therapist, you’re interested in taking this type of information and getting results that other people really struggle to achieve with their clients and patients, uh, please DM us on Instagram. Or like I said, drop us an email from the comments below ’cause we would really love to chat with you.
