We all know that wonderful feeling after a really good stretch.
You reach your arms overhead after sitting for too long, lengthen through your spine, take a deep breath and somehow your whole body seems to say, “Ahhh… that’s better.”
But what is actually happening when we stretch?
Are we making our muscles longer? Are we stretching our tendons? Why do we hold stretches rather than simply moving in and out of them? And why can stretching leave us feeling calmer as well as more mobile?
Stretching is much more interesting than simply “becoming more flexible.”
Here are five things worth knowing about stretching.
1. You’re not simply making your muscles longer
When we stretch, we primarily place the muscle and its surrounding connective tissues under gentle tension.
Muscles are made up of thousands of muscle fibres, which contain microscopic contractile units called sarcomeres. These allow muscles to shorten to create movement and lengthen as we move into a stretch.
But flexibility isn’t simply a matter of physically pulling a muscle longer.
Your nervous system is heavily involved.
Your brain is constantly monitoring what is happening in your body and deciding what range of movement feels safe. When you move towards the end of your comfortable range, sensory receptors provide information about changes in muscle length and tension.
If your nervous system thinks you are moving too far or too quickly, the muscles may tighten protectively.
This is one reason forcing a stretch is rarely helpful.
Instead, stretching gently and regularly can gradually increase your tolerance to the stretched position. Your nervous system becomes more comfortable allowing you into that range.
In other words, flexibility isn’t just about your muscles.
It’s also about your brain learning that the movement is safe.
2. So why do we hold a stretch?
Think about what happens when you first bend forward to touch your toes.
At first you may feel a strong pulling sensation.
Stay there comfortably for 20 or 30 seconds, breathe, relax your jaw and shoulders, and quite often you discover that you can gradually move a little further.
Why?
Partly because the tissues respond to sustained tension, but also because your nervous system begins to become more tolerant of the position.
Instead of immediately interpreting the sensation as:
“Stop! That’s far enough!”
the body gradually learns:
“Actually, we’re okay here.”
This is why a static stretch is usually held rather than bounced.
The aim isn’t to battle your body into submission. It’s to give it enough time to settle into the position.
And breathing can help enormously.
Slow, comfortable breathing reduces unnecessary muscular tension and makes it easier to relax into a stretch.
3. Are we stretching our tendons too?
This is an interesting one.
A muscle doesn’t exist in isolation. At either end, muscle connects to bone through tendons, while connective tissue surrounds and runs through the muscle itself.
When you stretch a muscle-tendon unit, several tissues experience tension.
But the goal of everyday flexibility training isn’t usually to make your tendons extremely stretchy.
Tendons have an important job: transmitting force from muscles to bones so that we can move. They need strength and stiffness as well as some elasticity.
So when we’re stretching our hamstrings, for example, we’re not simply trying to stretch the hamstring tendon like an elastic band.
We’re working with the whole system — muscles, connective tissues, joints and, importantly, the nervous system controlling them.
4. Why does stretching feel so good?
This is one of my favourite things about stretching.
Stretching doesn’t just affect flexibility. It can change how your whole body feels.
If you’ve been sitting at a desk, driving, working or simply holding yourself in one position for hours, certain muscles can feel stiff and uncomfortable.
Movement and stretching change that sensory input.
You move your joints. You lengthen muscles that have been sitting in shortened positions. You increase local circulation. You breathe more deeply. And you release some of the unnecessary muscular tension you’ve been carrying.
Gentle stretching combined with slow breathing can also feel deeply relaxing.
This is one reason practices such as yoga can feel so different from simply exercising.
Sometimes you start a yoga class feeling tight, restless and mentally busy.
An hour later, you haven’t just become more flexible.
You feel different.
Your shoulders have dropped. Your breathing has slowed. Your body feels more spacious. Your mind may feel quieter.
The body and nervous system are intimately connected, and stretching gives us an opportunity to work with both.
5. Flexibility is something we need to maintain
We often think about strength and cardiovascular fitness when we talk about staying healthy as we get older.
But maintaining our mobility and comfortable range of movement matters too.
Think about ordinary life.
Reaching into a cupboard.
Putting on your socks.
Turning around to look behind you.
Getting down onto the floor — and getting back up again.
Walking freely.
Moving your shoulders overhead.
All of these require adequate mobility.
If we rarely take our joints through their available ranges, we can gradually become accustomed to moving within smaller and smaller ones.
The good news is that you don’t need to become a contortionist.
A little regular stretching and mobility work can go a long way.
And consistency matters far more than occasionally doing one enormous stretching session.
Stretching isn’t about forcing your body
Perhaps the biggest misconception about stretching is that more is always better.
It isn’t.
You don’t need pain for stretching to be effective.
A useful stretch normally feels like gentle-to-moderate tension, not sharp pain. Move slowly, breathe normally and give your body time to respond.
And remember that stretching isn’t simply something we do because we want to touch our toes.
We stretch because we want to keep moving well.
We stretch because our bodies spend enormous amounts of time sitting and repeating the same movements.
We stretch because maintaining mobility makes everyday life easier.
And sometimes we stretch for the simplest reason of all:
because it feels absolutely wonderful.
Your body was designed to move — and sometimes a long, slow, delicious stretch is exactly what it has been asking for.
