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Stretching might be one of the most important activities that you can perform for your physical health. The flexibility that you gain in your muscles and connective tissues help you in all other sports-related activities. You can move easier and with less pain. Maybe most importantly is the injury prevention that you gain from stretching on a regular basis. There is a reason that Yoga has become so popular in our society, having a primary stretching component, it provides many benefits to our bodies.

If you've never given stretching the consideration that it deserves, continue reading, I'm going to tell you about what goes on when you stretch, and some techniques to make it more enjoyable and more effective. I guarantee that you'll learn a lot and maybe even be inspired to take up a regular stretching practice. I know it's one of the most enjoyable parts of my daily practices.

Your muscles and bones together make up your musculoskeletal system. This system provides support and movement capabilities for your body. It also protects your internal organs. Two very important functions. Obviously, something must hold them together. Your bones are held together by ligaments. They are connected to your bones at the joints and keep them intact. Your muscles are attached to your bones by tendons. This provides the capability of movement. Your tendons, bones, and ligaments could not move by themselves, only the muscles can do that. Still, your muscles perform various functions, some contribute to movement, while others just pump blood.

That being said, they're all still made out of the same basic structure. Your muscles are composed of bunches of strands of tissue called fascicles. These are what gives the muscle it's texture that you're used to seeing in anatomy books. However, those strands are actually made up of even smaller strands called fasciculi which are actually bundles of muscle fibers. Diving deeper into the microscopic level you'll see that even those muscle fibers are made up of tens of thousands of tiny threads called myofybrils. These threads have the ability to contract and relax or elongate. This of course is what creates the action of your muscles.

The myofybrils have this capability to expand and contract by virtue of the fact that they are composed of millions of tiny bands that are laid out end-to-end called sarcomeres. Each of these tiny bands are made up of overlapping thick and thin filaments called myofilaments. With each of these myofilaments consisting of contractile proteins - mostly actin and myosin.

When a signal sent from the brain, along your nervous system, reaches the neuromuscular junction, it is transmitted deep within the muscle tissue. This signal causes the flow of calcium, which triggers the thick and thin myofilaments which make up the sarcomeres to slide on top of one another, causing the sarcomeres to shorten. This action of all these millions of sarcomeres shortening at once causes the muscle fiber to contract. When a muscle fiber contracts, it contracts completely, there is no middle ground. The only way that we have the capability to exert differing amounts of force is by activating differing numbers of muscle fibers. Your central nervous system has the capability to recruit as many muscle fibers as it deems necessary to accomplish the task at hand.

When you stretch a muscle, the first thing involved is the sarcomere, the basic unit of contraction in the muscle fiber. As the sarcomere contracts, the myofilaments increase in their overlap of each other. As the muscle stretches, that overlap reduces. When a muscle is completely stretched, all of the sarcomeres are lying end to end. Additional stretching places force on the connective tissues. With increased tension, the collagen fibers that make up the connective tissue line up along the pull of the tension.

This is where the real benefits of stretching are realized. It allows you to realign all of the fibers in your muscle tissues and connective tissues, thus pulling in line any disorganized fibers. It's this realignment that helps rehabilitate scarred and damaged tissue.

When you stretch your muscles, you're stretching some of their fibers, but others may remain at rest. You should think of it as bunches of muscle fibers actually being stretched, just like when you contract a muscle there are groups of fibers that get contracted. The total length of the stretched muscle depends on how many fibers that are being stretched.

Proprioceptors are nerve endings that relay information about your musculoskeletal system to your central nervous system. They provide you with proprioception, which is the perception of one's own body position and movement. They detect changes, movement, force, tension or physical displacement in your body. When we're talking stretching, we care most about the proprioceptors located in the tendons and muscle fibers.

There are three proprioceptors that are involved in stretching. The pacinian corpuscle is located in the skin and excels at detecting vibration, but can also detect pressure and pain. The golgi tendon organ is located where the muscle fibers and the tendons meet. It is a small bundle of strands of collagen that have nerve fibers running through it. As the organ is stretched or compressed, these nerves detect changes in pressure. However, the primary proprioceptors involved in the stretch reflex are the muscle spindles. These are composed of 3-12 intrafusal muscle fibers which are embedded within the belly of the muscles, amongst the extrafusal muscle fibers. They are arranged in parallel to the muscle fibers, unlike the Golgi tendon organs which are oriented in a series. These three types proprioceptors work together to provide your brain with information about changes in tension and the rate of that change.

When a muscle is stretched, the muscle spindle detects the change in length and the speed of the stretch and sends this information to the spine. This triggers the stretch reflex, which essentially causes the muscle to contract in response to the stretch. This is the muscles way of protecting itself. If something is pulling on it, it wants to pull back to resist injury. The faster the stretch occurs, the stronger the contraction will be.

This is the reason that you hold a stretch. As you hold the muscle in a stretch position for a period of time, the muscle spindle gets used to the new length and realizes that it's not being injured so it stops signaling for a contraction. You can train your stretch receptors over time to allow for greater stretches.

This stretch reflex is actually made up of two components. This is due to two types of intrafusal muscle fibers: the nuclear chain fibers, which contribute a static stretch reflex which persists as long as the muscle is being stretched; and nuclear bag fibers, which are responsible for the dynamic stretch reflex that contracts very powerfully just at the initial onset of the stretch.

When the tension against the golgi tendon organ increases past a certain threshold, a lengthening reaction is triggered which prevents the muscles from contracting and causes them to relax. This is a injury prevention function and is possible because the signals from the golgi tendon organs overcome the signaling of the muscle spindles which are trying to make the muscles contract. This is another reason for holding a stretch, this inhibition of the contraction of your muscles allow you to stretch them farther.

So when you're stretching, you literally want to let the proprioceptors know that you're not going to injure your muscles. You accomplish this by a slow, gradual stretch.

You don't want to be aggressive with your stretching. Many times there's a tendency to get competitive with yourself about how far you can go. This urge should be tempered. You'll get much farther by a less strenuous stretch that slowly sinks deeper and deeper.

Stretching should be something that is enjoyable. I know that I look forward to my stretching routine through my entire workout. It's the best part of my morning exercises. If you are dreading your stretches at all, then you're pushing yourself too hard. Ease up a bit and breath.

Breathing is extremely important when you're stretching. Particularly focusing on the exhale. I visualize all of the tension dropping away from my stretched muscles with each exhale. Focus on settling in deeper each time you let your breath out. Gradually let your stretch reflex stop trying to contract your muscles and let them all relax.

If you pay close attention to your muscles while you're stretching them, you can actually feel the sarcomeres sliding across each other and gradually lengthening. On certain stretches, such as the one-legged toe-touch, I can actually hear them stretching out within my muscles. By focusing on relaxing your muscles and your breathing, you can get lost in the stretch, and when you open your eyes you realize that you've stretched farther than you ever have before.

Stretching is one of those things that pays off with consistency. Just a few minutes a day, if done consistently, will give you huge gains. Plus, you'll be much less injury-prone and more comfortable in your body than the majority of people today. Stretching is truly one of the things that I do on a regular basis that is noticeable when I skip it. You feel relaxed and loose - and ready to take on the world.

I hope that this article has helped you understand what goes on in your muscles when you stretch them. I have found that understanding the mechanism at work has allowed me to enjoy and excel at stretching much more.

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