How to Stretch Smarter Stretch Healthier
Good Stretches, Functional Stretches, Fixing Bad Stretching

Dr. Bookspan's methods to fix injuries and improve flexibility and fitness are used by military and top rehab centers around the world.
Named "The St. Jude of the Joints" by Harvard Medical School clinicians

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© Jolie Bookspan, MEd, PhD, FAWM
Director, Neck and Back Pain Sports Medicine
Director, AFEM - Academy of Functional Exercise Medicine

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Exercise is Medicine?
Not All Exercise and Stretches Are Good Medicine. Not All Medicine is Healthy.

It makes no sense to create health problems from the things you do for your health.  Here Is How To Make Exercise Into Healthy Medicine. This short article shows you how to quickly stop several common sources of pain and chronic dysfunction that come from conventional exercises and stretches.

It's not health care if it's not healthy. No health insurance needed for this exciting change in health care. I have developed information through years of research in the lab, and put it here on my web site for the benefit of the world. Get better and the world will be better.

 

What is Different About This Information:

• Medical and fitness books may be written by people who have not researched the information in a laboratory themselves, but repeat popular consensus (repeating what everyone else says). Doing "medical research" does not mean "read it in a book or on the Internet." I am the researcher who directly studies why conventional stretches are not preventing injuries, and worked years to see what to do instead.
• Fitness classes and gyms are filled with people stretching - often in unhealthy ways that emphasize the injurious positioning that caused their tightness, pain, and injuries in the first place. Not all foods in the health food store are healthy or do what they claim. The same is true for many stretches.
• I developed re-training methods to change "doing" a bunch of conventional stretches into two healthy innovations: 1. Restoring length for health and real life function - functional stretches, and 2. Getting functional flexibility as a built-in part of your daily ordinary movements - true fitness as a lifestyle.

 

Stretches Aren't Fixing Injuries?

• Flexibility training is often thought to reduce injuries. The actual number of injuries show that stretching isn't as preventive as hoped.
• The reason seems to be how people stretch, then how they move during exercise and daily life.
• Instead of spending your day bent over a desk and steering wheel, then going to a gym or class to repeat the same forward bending, see what is really needed to restore healthy muscle length and movement ability. You need to use your brain, not just do a bunch of motions because "everyone stretches that way" or because it looks cool.
• Instead of doing a bunch of artificial strained movements called stretches and exercises, check how you move, bend, sit, reach, and live in real life. Stretches should be functional, which means how you move in real life.
• This article shows the concepts.

 

Stretches That Perpetuate The Same Painful Posture You Started With

After rounding forward all day over the computer, desk, steering wheel, handlebars, and backpack, more forward rounding for stretches and exercise is not healthful or needed.

A habit at the root of much pain and tightness is that many people do most or all of their stretches by bending forward:

They touch toes,
bring knee to chest,
hang forward at the waist,
bring arm forward over the body,
lunge forward,
do "PIlates hundreds"
and the many other bent forward Pilates, yoga, and other forward bending stretches. The several back pain articles on this web site describe the problems that this much forward bending causes to the muscles, bones, and discs of your back.

Forward stretching does stretch your back, but your back muscles are already too long and overstretched from a lifestyle of bending forward. The muscles in front - the chest and the front of the shoulder - get shorter and tighter.

After bending forward over a computer all day,
you don't need more forward bending as a stretch

The Results Are Common:

1. People spend much time doing stretches that add to the problems they started with.
2. They lose the flexibility needed to simply stand up straight.
3. This often results in chronic low-grade aches, injury, and wear and tear from habitual unhealthy positioning.
   

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Here is What To Do

Wall Test - Functional Flexibility Health Test

This is the Wall Test to assess if you have the functional flexibility to comfortably stand up straight

First stand up with arms at your sides, and notice your thumbs. WIth upper body rounding, thumbs often turn inward - toward each other, instead of forward or outward.

Now, stand with your back against a wall and try to stand straight. Check what happens using the drawing and description of wall test results below;

Test functional flexibility by checking comfort and positioning while standing at a wall

 

1. Are your back and shoulders too rounded forward, or your hip too tight in front to comfortably stand against the wall (Figure #1?
2. Do you overarch your lower back or lean back (Figure 2)? (People also spend much of their time standing and walking over-doing the lower back inward curve. Much lower back pain results - see this article on hyper-lordosis)
3. Does your head chin jut forward or lift up (Figures 1, 2, and 3)?
4. Do you have to overarch your lower back and lift your chin to touch your head (Figure #4)?
5. Straight position of Figure #5 should feel natural. If not, use the three stretches that follow.

(Note: The Wall Test is a general concept - the head of people with extra large bodies will often be away from the wall. Use your brain and a mirror to determine the feel of general upright straight comfortable healthy positioning)

 

Functional Stretches for Your Real Life

To have the upper body flexibility to stand, walk, and move in healthful straight position, use these three functional stretches:

1. Chest (pectoral muscle) Stretch. The idea of this stretch is to lengthen your front chest muscles. If you do not feel the stretch right away in front chest muscles, you are doing it wrong. The idea is not to "do" a stretch, but to feel and understand where you need the added muscle length, then move in a way that achieves that.

• Face a wall with one arm bent to the side. Elbow at around ear height. Inside of arm touches wall.
• Turn your body and feet away from the wall so that the wall gently braces the elbow back - behind you.
• Brace your elbow back against a wall (not just to the side). Breathe and relax,
• Feel the stretch in the front chest muscles. Don't hunch or tighten the shoulder. Hold a few seconds on each side.

Use a wall or doorway to gently pull your elbow back until you feel the front
of your chest stretch pleasantly. Breathe. Hold a few seconds and switch sides.

 

• Drop arms and Test to see if you stretched effectively with the thumbs test and the Wall Test (above).
• Thumbs should no longer turn inward. Restored muscle length should now make it possible to stand against the wall comfortably, with heels, hip, back and the back of the head touching.
• If your thumbs (arms) have not stopped rolling inward and you aren't more comfortably straight at the wall, do the above stretch again, checking what you missed.

Do this pectoral stretch, along with the next two stretches, first thing in the morning, before exercise, and throughout the day to restore healthy shoulder and head positioning. Use this instead of pulling one arm across the front of your body. I call that the "round shoulder exercise." You do not need more length to already over-rounded shoulders. 

 

2. Trapezius (top of shoulder) Stretch. Stand straight, placing one hand behind the opposite hip, as if in an opposite pants pocket. Tilt head toward the hand, stretching the side of the neck, body and, as you slide the other hand down toward the knee, the side of the hip. Keep the back of your head and body against a wall at first to learn where straight position is. Do both sides for a few seconds each. Keep breathing. Don't lean forward.

Front and back view of the same stretch.
Don't tilt head forward - stand with your back against a wall to learn where upright head position is.

 

Now TEST your results with the Wall Test again to see if you did this stretch right.

It should become even more comfortable and possible. If not, check how you are doing these stretches. They are designed to make a positive change then and there.

 

3. Triceps Stretch. This is the third stretch to do:

How much space is there between your underarm and wall? It tells mow much you can straighten your arm overhead for ordinary daily activities, like reaching in cabinets and putting things in overhead racks. For function, stretch in healthy ways to achieve straight overhead reaching ability.

 

• Stand closely facing a wall.
• Put one arm high on the wall above your head. Bend your elbow. Lean into the wall, flattening the space between your underarm and the wall.
• Let the stretch come from your arm, not by arching your lower back.
• The idea is to be able to reach overhead with shoulder flexibility, not by leaning back, by craning your neck, or other unhealthy movement patterns.

Then test effectiveness using the Wall Test again. It should become even more comfortable and possible. If not, check how you are doing these stretches. They are designed to make a positive change then and there.

 

Restore Muscle Length To Make Healthy Standing and Movement Comfortable and Possible

The idea of the above three stretches is to restore functional flexibility to stand and move comfortably upright. You do not get healthful movement patterns or ability to stand, walk, and run in healthful ways by constantly doing bent forward stretches. With healthful functional flexibility you will be able to to the following:

When lying on your back (face up, flat on the floor or other flat surface), can you lie comfortably without lifting your chin or craning your neck?
When lying on your back, can you put your arms on the floor over your head without arching your back and lifting your ribs?
When lying on your back), can you bend your elbows with hands against the floor, as if in "a stick-up?"
Many people are so round-shouldered that this is uncomfortable or impossible. Use the three stretches above.

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More Good Stretches

Of many good stretches, main areas to stretch for health and functional positioning (posture) are the anterior shoulder and chest as described above, plus a few selected stretches that follow. For more, come to the Classes.

 

More Upper Body

4. Upper Back Stretch. The change to Functional Stretching is to see if you can comfortably "unround" a rounded upper back.

• Lie on your back with a small pillow under the upper back at the shoulder blades (not under head or neck).
• Extend (unround) your upper spine. Head and hips are on the floor and upper  back is stretching over the pillow.
• It should feel good, not hurt.
• You can also place the pillow vertically between your shoulders and retract shoulders to the floor over this roll to "unround" the upper back without arching your lower back.

Use this to learn how to move your shoulders away from a rounded- forward position, while relaxing at the same time.
Then transfer that knowledge to changing your round shoulders to straight while standing and reaching overhead.

If you have pain trying this, stop, it is wrong. See the many factors in being too tight to unround your shoulders in my article:
Quick, Feel-Good Upper Back and Chest Stretch on my free on-line health compendium, The FItness Fixer™.

 

5. Upper Back Extension. Many people keep their shoulders and upper back rounded forward, as pictured below. They also pinch their beck back when lifting their upper body. Both are unhealthy. The change to Functional Stretching is to see if you are doing what you think you are doing, and use that knowledge to relearn how to unround your upper back and shoulders, and not crane your neck when you look upward.

Notice if your upper back stayed rounded forward, as pictured, instead of getting the intended upper body stretch.

• Lie face down. Hands are at your sides and off the floor. Slowly lift your upper body a few inches, then lower.
• Feel the lift from your upper chest, not by lifting your chin.
• Notice if you bend from the neck. Instead, keep neck neutral and feel the range of motion from your chest. Transfer that knowledge to when you are standing - when you look upward, unround the upper body instead of keeping it rounded, and do not pinch back your neck or jut your chin forward when looking upward, which are body common sources of neck pain.

As you progress, move your hands to the side, then overhead. If it hurts, you may be too tight or doing it wrong.
Upper back extension is an effective strengthener that combines range of motion. Back extension is important to teach your back muscles how to hold themselves up, not rounded. It is a good exercise because it also unloads the discs while working the muscles. Bending forward loads the discs. Back extension is a better exercise than standing on knees and hands, and lifting one leg and arm.

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Hip and Thigh

Tight muscles in front of your hip, common in people who sit a lot, change the normal angle of your hip and low back, inhibiting normal standing, walking, and running, adding a large share of low back pain. Look at fitness magazines and see that many people are pictured bent forward at the hip when standing. This is bad posture and a tight hip. You do not need more stretches that bend the hip forward, but stretches that show you how to lengthen and use the hip in an extended position, needed for healthful standing, walking, kicking, jumping, running, and more.

6. The lunge, described in the full-length back pain article is an important functional stretch for the front of the hip and thigh, Achilles tendon, and foot.

• Stand with one foot far in front and the other far in back. Lift your back heel and bend both knees.
• Keep both feet facing forward. Don't turn the back foot outward.
  Notice your pelvis. It should be vertical, not tilt forward from the top of the leg to the waist.
• "Tuck" your hip under so it is vertical from leg to waist (first drawing below of the lunge), not tilted forward in front (second drawing below) 
• Feel the stretch move to the front of the hip flexor (muscle that bends your hip forward). This is the muscle that gets tight from sitting and doing hip bending/ leg lift exercises like Pilates.

The stretch comes from changing to upright position with neutral spine at the hip (1st drawing).
Keep weight centered over both legs (happy first drawing) not leaning and tilting forward over front knee (second figure who is not happy).

 

The lunge is not just an exercise or stretch to "do" a number of sets or reps, then check off as "finished." The functional change comes from using this as healthful bending for the hundreds of times every day that you need to stoop and reach things. Do you bend over wrong? Most people know what bending over forward is a common course of back pain. They may do back exercises, then never think about the hundreds of times every day that you need to get things in the kitchen , office, in the house, yard, and at work. The lunge, along with the half-squat, described in the fix back pain article are both functional stretches. They are also functional strength exercises. They combine movements needed for everyday life with healthy exercise and range of motion. Instead of bending over to pick things up, use the lunge and half-squat.  You will build in strength and stretch all day. That is functional stretching and fitness as a lifestyle. Going to a gym three times a week and using unhealthful movement patterns the rest of the time is not exercise as a lifestyle.

 

7. A Relaxing Hip Stretch. The function of this stretch is to see if you can feel and understand the difference between stretching the front of your hip and overarching your lower back. Many people do many hip stretched, but get the range of motion from their lower back, not where it is needed - at the front where the leg meets the body. TIght front hip causes many problems.

A quick feel-good stretch for the front of the hip is to lie face up on a bed or bench with hips right at the edge. Let legs stretch downward off the bed, feet dangling, or on the floor. Feel the stretch in the front of the hip (not lower back).

Can you change your stretch so that you lengthen the front of the leg and hip, not arch the lower back?

 

If your lower back pinches or hurts (or just painlessly rises upward), you are arching. Stop arching by pressing the lower back down toward the bed. Feel the stretch move to front hip.

For more discussion of this stretch Click Fast Fitness - Quick Relaxing Hip Stretch to see this stretch on my Fitness Fixer™ health column.

For more discussion of a posterior hip stretch, click Better Posterior Hip Iliotibial, and Piriform Stretch on my Fitness Fixer™ health column.

8. Lower Back Extension. Many people pinch their lower back and only move from one mobile vertebrae instead of getting a good stretch from the front of the hip and a nice extension along the entire lower spine. The change to Functional Stretching is to see if you are doing what you think you are doing, and use that knowledge to relearn how to extend and lengthen from the front of the leg and hip, not pinch from the lower back.

Use this retraining stretch to see if you pinch your lower back instead of lengthening from the front of the hip, as needed for walking and other activities.

 

• Lie face down, hands under chin or at your sides. Slowly lift legs a few inches, then lower. Keep knees straight. Or start by doing one leg at a time, then progressing to both.
• Lower back extension is a good way to help your hip muscles lengthen while working. Most people only bend forward at the hip to exercise, making a tighter hip, more likely to hurt.
• Back extension has the benefit of unloading the discs. Bending forward puts much load on them. Extension relieves this.
• Done properly, lying down back extension is a more effective and more functional exercise than lifting a leg or arm from hands and knees.

 

9. Quadriceps Stretch. The front of the thigh needs to lengthen during many normal activities of walking, running, kicking, and having fun. Many people bend forward at the hip instead of lengthening at the thigh.

Use this stretch to notice if you bend the hip forward instead of letting it lengthen, and if you get the stretch from the lower back instead of the front of the hip, as needed for pain free walking and running.

• The difference comes when you tuck your hip to neutral.
• Allowing the lower back to overarch will reduce, even lose the stretch.
• Overarching the lower back pinches and load it, causing much pain when standing and running. Learning to move to neutral, not overarched lower spine is a functional stretch of the front of the hip.
• Push your foot away into your hand, don't pull your foot in to your behind.
• To stretch quadriceps lying down, curl on one side, both knees bent in front. Extend the top leg behind you, foot in hand. Keep the bottom knee bent in front.

 

10. Hamstrings
It is well documented that bending forward from a stand overloads your lower back discs. It doesn't become healthy by calling it a stretch. Instead of bending over from a stand or sitting and bending forward, relearn functional stretching. Standing is the way you most often need range of motion - running, kicking, dancing, stepping up, and more fun activities. This hamstring stretch is different and more functional than putting one foot up on a bench.

Use functional hamstring stretches .
Instead of standing bent over, sitting bent over, or only lying down,

• Stand no more than finger-tip distance from a wall. It will feel too close, but this is key to learning positioning.
• Stand on one foot and and press the bottom of the other foot toward the wall directly in front of you. Aim about knee to hip height.
• Keep the standing foot straight forward, not turned out.
• Don't round your hip or back.
• Straighten up. Straighten your upper body. LIft up and feel the stretch move to the hamstring.

You will find you need to balance. This is good. Balance is important function for real life walking, stairs, and other times when you lift one leg. If find this standing stretch difficult, that is a helpful diagnostic that you need to work on real life function. You need to have the flexibility to stand straight and not be forced into rounding when you lift one leg. Practice safely and use your brain to retrain how to stand up, raise one leg, balance, and not slump into unhealthful positions.

 

When doing lying down hamstring stretches, notice if your anterior (front) hip is so tight that the leg on the floor lifts too. Stretch your anterior hip with the lunge, described earlier, so that you can stretch your leg without straining other parts.

Notice if you crane your neck or let your bottom leg be pulled up
RElearn how to straighten out. Needed for real life when standing. You don't want to practice a stretch in a position that is unhealthful when standing.

Trainers often say to bend the bottom leg to "protect" your back, but you lose a good stretch that way. How are you supposed to stand and walk if keeping knees bent that much is the only way to 'protect" your back. You need to learn to position your hip spine and back with your legs straight for standing and running.

You can protect your back  by using your own muscles to properly position yourself. That is function.

 

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Achilles and Foot

Tight hip, calf, and Achilles contribute to walking "duck-footed" or toe-out. The resulting change in gait and stance may wear on ankles, knees, hips, and big toe, and contribute to bunion formation. Tight feet add to plantar fasciitis.

11. Functional Achilles Stretch Built Into Daily Life - Good Bending
Good bending using the half-squat is a functional, built-in Achilles and foot stretch.

Commonly, Achilles stretches are thought of as something you do, lunging forward against a wall for a few seconds. Races and gyms are filled with runners standing still to stretch, then it is a large surprise to them when they get a pull during the race. They are surprised to get injured even though "they stretched." They did not stretch the way they move. The stretch never prepared them for real life movement - functional stretching.

The average person bends many hundreds of times every day for ordinary reaching, retrieving, cleaning, picking things up. The Fixing Back Pain article reminds that if you bend over "wrong" hundreds of times a day, it is no mystery to have back pain. Good bending builds Achilles, leg, knee, and hip strength and flexibility while stopping injurious forces to the spine. There are several functional good bending movement, explained in the Back Pain Article and other articles on my site Clinical Page. If you squat all the way down to sit or rest (full squat) still keep both heels down on the ground.

Good Bending for Back, Knees, and Achilles:

    

Built-in functional Achilles and foot stretch - Keep both heels on the floor for all the hundreds of times every day you bend.

 

No-benefit Bending:

  
#1 on left practices how to have back pain. Instead, keep upper body upright, shown earlier in Good Bending.
#2 on right shifts body weight to knee joints and gets no functional leg or Achilles stretch. Instead, keep heels down.

 

12. Achilles Stretch Using the Lunge described above.

• Stand up, feet apart. Slide one foot comfortably back, keeping the foot straight not turned out. LIft the back heel and keep the back foot straight, not turned outward.
• Bend both knees to dip toward the floor - keep your back knee OFF the floor.
• Keep front knee over ankle. Don't let your front knee come forward.
• Don't arch your lower back. Tuck your hip under to neutral spine. When you do, you will feel the stretch in the front of your hip.
• Hold your body upright. Don't lean the upper body back.
  
  

13. Wall Achilles. An effective and functional Achilles stretch is the Wall Achilles stretch. This is like the wall hamstring stretch described above in #10. You need Achilles length while running, walking, and other upright activities, not bent over.

The Wall Achilles stretch is more effective and functional than the standard "lunge and lean."
Press your heel toward the wall. The concept is to retraining this stretch to stand straight.
This stretch trains real life function - important for taking stairs and hills, keeping balance, and not slouching.

 

• Stand facing a wall at arm's length. Arm's length will seem too close, but it is not.
• With both feet facing directly straight forward, not turned out, put one foot up against the wall at knee height.
• Stand up straight, not bending forward, and without curling your back or hip under.
• Look to make sure your standing foot is straight forward, not turned out, not even a little. Keep your back foot straight, not turned out or the stretch is lost.
• Relearn this function for walking with feet straight, running, jumping, stepping up, and other real life activities.

14. "Downward Dog" is an effective multi-joint stretch with body weight supported on hands, not the back. Put your hands and feet on the floor, hands far forward of the feet like starting a push-up, with weight mostly on hands. Keep your feet where they are, and lift hips up in the air pushing backward until your heels relax to the floor. Arch your back, rather than letting it round or hunch. Relax your head down. Keep your feet straight, not turned, weight on soles, not arches. Push your fingers forward with straight, not locked elbows. Keep your hands and feet far apart, with weight on your arms. You probably have seen dogs and cats stretch this way.

"Downward dog" rests weight on your arms, shifting the leverage point off your lower back. You stretch feet, Achilles, calf, hamstring, back, and shoulders at once. Keep your back straighter than the people above at left.

15. Daily Positioning Gives a Built-In Foot Stretch. During daily walking and movement, don't let your body weight fall inward on your arches, keep weight on the sole of the foot. Sagging arches is a stretch, but a bad one that you can avoid. Point your toes straight ahead. This prevents uneven and unhealthy stretch forces that gradually deform your feet, ankles, and knees. Make sure straight leg posture continues through your knee and hip, to prevent straightening your foot from overstraining another part.

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How to Avoid Stretching Injuries and More Tightness
Just as not all foods are necessary or healthy, neither are several common stretches:

• Remember that slouching is a stretch – a bad one. Your back and neck become overstretched, weak, and rounded. Many people stand and sit round-shouldered with forward head and poor low back posture all day. Don't compound the problem with continued forward stretching.
• Shoulder stands and "the plow" in yoga, are weighted bending (flexion), reinforcing the common poor posture of forward head and round shoulders. The long ligament of the spine eventually overstretches. Overstretched ligaments do not return to normal length and cannot hold your vertebrae or discs in positions. Chronic high bending force may eventually degenerate and herniate cervical discs and promote bone spur.
• Stop pulling one arm in front of your body. It is The Stretch You Need The Least
• A common shoulder stretch involves bending forward with arms lifted behind you with clasped hands. Combines unsupported forward bending promoting disc degeneration/ herniation with overextension of the anterior (front) shoulder capsule.
• The "hurdler's stretch" (sitting with one knee rotated and bent laterally, pictured at the beginning of this article) and yoga knee stretches involving lying back on folded, rotated knees, forcibly twist and over-lengthens the ligament on the inner side of your knee (medial collateral ligament).
• Don't let anyone sit on, or press your back into rounded position or forward bending stretches.
• Don't "butterfly" knees (flap up and down vigorously) when sitting with bent knees and soles of feet touching. Don't let anyone stand on or push your knees hard to help you stretch.
• When leaning back to stretch, whether standing, sitting, or lying, keep your chin in, don't crane your neck. Stretch by reversing the outward curve of your upper back (thoracic kyphosis) to an inner curve, not craning your neck back like a Pez dispenser and promoting neck pain.
• When sitting cross-legged, look to see if you are turning the side of your ankle. Straighten your ankle and the stretch will move more to the hip. Stretch from the hip rather than bending your ankle upward. Overstretching ligaments on the side of your ankle leaves the ankle prone to sprains.
• Stretch muscles not joints. Don't force joints into such ligament laxity that they no longer "seat" properly.
• When stretching one area, don't strain another. When you stretch hamstrings, don't substitute craning your neck and rounding your shoulders. When you stretch the front of your thigh by holding a bent leg behind you, don't arch your back. When stretching arms overhead, stretch from the shoulder, not from arching your back.
• Change to good stretches to prevent joint injury. Unstable joints slowly wear and tear. In a sudden situation, weak, unstable joints are predisposed to pulls or dislocation.
• Slouching isn't cool. Keeping muscles in lengthened positions weakens them. If you feel you need to slouch to relieve pain, see why you caused the pain to need an unhealthful antidote.

(to keep this article a quick and easy summary, much is left out. The books tell more.)

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Summary

1. Understanding the greater picture of why a stretch is functional or not, tells you more than just a list of where the stretch "targets."
2. Check your list of exercises and stretches. The majority of conventional stretches bend forward - sitting, lying, and standing bent over. Doing a few extension stretches the "other way" does not cancel the great majority of the time that people spent training a bent forward position in daily life. Many people sit at work for many hours a day, then stretch with many bent forward positions. More forward-bending is not needed. Stretching needs to use your brain.
3. Stretching just to make joints go to greater range does not in itself, translate to better use of the joint during real life movement. Changing the practice of stretching to retrain healthy movement skills in ways you need to move in real life is a healthy change in stretching called Functional Stretching. Check if you are making using your time spent stretching training healthy function.
4. For many people, good flexibility means bending forward to touch the toes. Many of these same people don't have the flexibility to stand up straight. Their body and movement patterns are trained and tightened to a bent forward position. They cannot straighten out enough to comfortably lie flat without a pillow under head or knees, or stand with their back against a wall with the back of their head touching the wall without craning their neck or lower back. Their back and shoulders are too rounded forward. Their hip is too tight in front. Tight chest, shoulders, and anterior hip contribute to round-shouldered, bent forward posture. The average person is often too tight to stand up straight. Consequently, they stand, walk, and do all activities at joint angles that impinge, grind, rub, and stress. This is functional tightness.
5. The idea of stretching needs to be reframed as specific retraining to restore healthy length to your muscles, so that you no longer stand, sit, and move with strained unhealthful positioning.
6. Stretching needs reform.
7. Bad body ergonomics of rounding forward is a common cause of upper back and neck pain, often mistaken for "stress" or arthritis or whatever else is on the x-ray but not the main or even related cause of pain. Watch people at the gym and in life. Notice how often fitness publications ask you to practice being bent over . Instead, get functional stretching.

Use good healthy movement retraining (Functional Stretching), described in this article, to regain needed muscle length for healthy positioning for all you do, not just during your few moments of stretches. That is how stretching can benefit you in your daily life.

Use these easy principles when you move in real life and when you stretch (instead of just "doing" stretches)
and feel better starting now.

 

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