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Old 12-01-08 | 06:14 PM
  #26  
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To Stretch or Not to Stretch? The Answer is Elastic (according to this review of the evidence, including Centers for Disease Control studies):

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/he...on/13Best.html

Knowing that "for example is not proof," I nevertheless found that a stretching--and strengthening--program provided to me by a physical therapist enabled me to go from debilitating back pain (complete with a handicapped license plate and the inability to walk without crutches) to being a regular cyclist again.

Another interesting (well, to me) review of the literature published in The Physician and Sports Medicine suggests that stretching doesn't work for all people under all circumstances but can make a difference when applied appropriately:

https://www.physsportsmed.com/issues/...305/shrier.htm
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Old 12-01-08 | 06:16 PM
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Originally Posted by Jet Travis
To Stretch or Not to Stretch? The Answer is Elastic (according to this review of the evidence, including Centers for Disease Control studies):

https://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/13/he...on/13Best.html

Knowing that "for example is not proof," I nevertheless found that a stretching--and strengthening--program provided to me by a physical therapist enabled me to go from debilitating back pain (complete with a handicapped license plate and the inability to walk without crutches) to being a regular cyclist again.
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Amen

I could say the exact same thing for my wife.

She at one time in the past couple of years was using an electric scooter in the grocery store.

Yesterday she walked 2.8 miles up and down hills.

Stretching and exercises.
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Old 12-01-08 | 06:25 PM
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Originally Posted by Cone Wrench
The thrust of the article was that static stretching does nothing to prevent injury. Nor does it enhance performance. In fact, researchers found that static stretching weakened the muscles. This is probably a different situation from yours.
10,600 miles this year.
Stand up coast, pedal and stretch while on the bike.
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Old 12-01-08 | 06:49 PM
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I found the most recent article on the NYT. I posted the whole thing as I believe the NYT still requires one to register to get access to their web page.

Static stretching for flexibility and injury protection is counter productive.

Al


Phys Ed
Stretching: The Truth
By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS
WHEN DUANE KNUDSON, a professor of kinesiology at California State University, Chico, looks around campus at athletes warming up before practice, he sees one dangerous mistake after another. “They’re stretching, touching their toes. . . . ” He sighs. “It’s discouraging.”

If you’re like most of us, you were taught the importance of warm-up exercises back in grade school, and you’ve likely continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes’ warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but actually bad for you.

The old presumption that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds — known as static stretching — primes muscles for a workout is dead wrong. It actually weakens them. In a recent study conducted at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, athletes generated less force from their leg muscles after static stretching than they did after not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent. Also, stretching one leg’s muscles can reduce strength in the other leg as well, probably because the central nervous system rebels against the movements.

“There is a neuromuscular inhibitory response to static stretching,” says Malachy McHugh, the director of research at the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The straining muscle becomes less responsive and stays weakened for up to 30 minutes after stretching, which is not how an athlete wants to begin a workout.

THE RIGHT WARM-UP should do two things: loosen muscles and tendons to increase the range of motion of various joints, and literally warm up the body. When you’re at rest, there’s less blood flow to muscles and tendons, and they stiffen. “You need to make tissues and tendons compliant before beginning exercise,” Knudson says.

A well-designed warm-up starts by increasing body heat and blood flow. Warm muscles and dilated blood vessels pull oxygen from the bloodstream more efficiently and use stored muscle fuel more effectively. They also withstand loads better. One significant if gruesome study found that the leg-muscle tissue of laboratory rabbits could be stretched farther before ripping if it had been electronically stimulated — that is, warmed up.

To raise the body’s temperature, a warm-up must begin with aerobic activity, usually light jogging. Most coaches and athletes have known this for years. That’s why tennis players run around the court four or five times before a match and marathoners stride in front of the starting line. But many athletes do this portion of their warm-up too intensely or too early.

A 2002 study of collegiate volleyball players found that those who’d warmed up and then sat on the bench for 30 minutes had lower backs that were stiffer than they had been before the warm-up. And a number of recent studies have demonstrated that an overly vigorous aerobic warm-up simply makes you tired. Most experts advise starting your warm-up jog at about 40 percent of your maximum heart rate (a very easy pace) and progressing to about 60 percent. The aerobic warm-up should take only 5 to 10 minutes, with a 5-minute recovery. (Sprinters require longer warm-ups, because the loads exerted on their muscles are so extreme.) Then it’s time for the most important and unorthodox part of a proper warm-up regimen, the Spider-Man and its counterparts.

“TOWARDS THE end of my playing career, in about 2000, I started seeing some of the other guys out on the court doing these strange things before a match and thinking, What in the world is that?” says Mark Merklein, 36, once a highly ranked tennis player and now a national coach for the United States Tennis Association. The players were lunging, kicking and occasionally skittering, spider-like, along the sidelines. They were early adopters of a new approach to stretching.

While static stretching is still almost universally practiced among amateur athletes — watch your child’s soccer team next weekend — it doesn’t improve the muscles’ ability to perform with more power, physiologists now agree. “You may feel as if you’re able to stretch farther after holding a stretch for 30 seconds,” McHugh says, “so you think you’ve increased that muscle’s readiness.” But typically you’ve increased only your mental tolerance for the discomfort of the stretch. The muscle is actually weaker.

Stretching muscles while moving, on the other hand, a technique known as dynamic stretching or dynamic warm-ups, increases power, flexibility and range of motion. Muscles in motion don’t experience that insidious inhibitory response. They instead get what McHugh calls “an excitatory message” to perform.

Dynamic stretching is at its most effective when it’s relatively sports specific. “You need range-of-motion exercises that activate all of the joints and connective tissue that will be needed for the task ahead,” says Terrence Mahon, a coach with Team Running USA, home to the Olympic marathoners Ryan Hall and Deena Kastor. For runners, an ideal warm-up might include squats, lunges and “form drills” like kicking your buttocks with your heels. Athletes who need to move rapidly in different directions, like soccer, tennis or basketball players, should do dynamic stretches that involve many parts of the body. “Spider-Man” is a particularly good drill: drop onto all fours and crawl the width of the court, as if you were climbing a wall. (For other dynamic stretches, see the sidebar below.)

Even golfers, notoriously nonchalant about warming up (a recent survey of 304 recreational golfers found that two-thirds seldom or never bother), would benefit from exerting themselves a bit before teeing off. In one 2004 study, golfers who did dynamic warm- up exercises and practice swings increased their clubhead speed and were projected to have dropped their handicaps by seven strokes over seven weeks.

Controversy remains about the extent to which dynamic warm-ups prevent injury. But studies have been increasingly clear that static stretching alone before exercise does little or nothing to help. The largest study has been done on military recruits; results showed that an almost equal number of subjects developed lower-limb injuries (shin splints, stress fractures, etc.), regardless of whether they had performed static stretches before training sessions. A major study published earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control, on the other hand, found that knee injuries were cut nearly in half among female collegiate soccer players who followed a warm-up program that included both dynamic warm-up exercises and static stretching. (For a sample routine, visit www.aclprevent.com/pepprogram.htm.) And in golf, new research by Andrea Fradkin, an assistant professor of exercise science at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania, suggests that those who warm up are nine times less likely to be injured.
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Old 12-01-08 | 06:55 PM
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If you have all the mobility that you want, then smile, be happy and thankful. If on the other hand you feel like you would like to be able to bend over and tie your shoes and reach your arms behind your back or even lift your leg over a bike seat a little easier, then maybe some strength and streaching exercises are for you. Everything that we do comes with some risk. Even bending to tie a shoe can cause a back to go out of alignment and then it is off to the emergency room to try and find some relief.

It seems like when I get a medical problem such as frozen shoulders and I go to the doctor all I get told is that I can go to P T. For me the yoga class has provided the P T and a lot more.

Good luck with which ever path you decide to go down.

ps I did a self study about bicycle crashes and have concluded that they are painful and can be dangerous. So again be careful.
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Old 12-01-08 | 07:10 PM
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Originally Posted by DnvrFox
From the Bicycling Magazine I got today:

Page 33

"Banish Lower Back Pain"

Shows two stretches to stretch the psoas muscle (Deep hip flexor).

Page 35

"Balance Your Body"

Shows stretches and exercises to correct for problems from hunching forward while riding, including tight quads and hip flexors and states:

"Stretch you quads, hip flexors, chest and shoulders daily" and then shows exercises designed to strengthen.

My DO recommended (and taught) me stretches. Every physical therapist I know teaches some sort of stretching, as did my chiropractor - even giving classes.

One article stating otherwise just doesn't hack it.

If you suffer from lower back pain, you are likely a believer in stretching.

I used to suffer lower back pain when I spent some time partially bent over like working on a car engine. When I started weight training, it went away. At 69 I stay totally pain free (and I meant totally) as long as I weight train.

The biggest impact on my back health now is three sets of squats with 180 lbs, 6 or 7 reps each set. I only started squats about a year ago when I discovered that you could get a "squat cage" that eliminated the spotter. I don't do gyms preferring to exercise at home with free weights. Helped my biking as well

I have a theory about chiropractors. They exercise the muscles/joints/tendons that one could do for one's self at a much lower cost.

I have little faith in physical therapists. Partly because they have people do static stretches with no real basis for having them do it except that private insurances and Medicare will pay for it. My wife went through a whole course with one recently for a dinged ankle and with a doctors prescription. She got so bored that she quit and did the exercises at home. Saved medicare some $'s.

Al

Last edited by alcanoe; 12-01-08 at 09:02 PM.
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Old 12-01-08 | 08:15 PM
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I believe the OP was interested in increasing his range of motion, not warming up, reducing pain, etc. ...just increase his ability to move his leg in a specific direction.
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Old 12-02-08 | 09:37 AM
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Originally Posted by NOS88
I believe the OP was interested in increasing his range of motion, not warming up, reducing pain, etc. ...just increase his ability to move his leg in a specific direction.
So stretching of some sort will probably be necessary. The study quoted in the NY Times showed that static stretching was the problem. The authors of the study did suggest that controlled dynamic stretching can be beneficial. This is not to be confused with the stupid, bouncy dynamic stretching that your football coach or gym teacher made you do. The only reason we all survived that was because we were young.

I suspect that we will see a whole new set of stretching protocols in the near future.
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Old 12-02-08 | 09:48 AM
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Originally Posted by Cone Wrench
So stretching of some sort will probably be necessary. .
A viable and more productive alternative especially for a 70 year old is weight training. It takes more than flexibility to get a leg over, it takes balance. Balance degrades with age as fast or faster than muscle mass. Weight training maintains balance, muscle mass and flexibility as one ages. A recent study of old folks showed that weight training can actually maintain muscle mass quantity and not just reduce the rate of decline.

Al
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Old 12-02-08 | 10:02 AM
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Stretches keep me able to do even my most fundamental daily movements, including cycling and racing dirt bikes. We were taught stretches in football and track during high school. The Marines had us stretching before and during P.T. when I had my back injury and following surgeries stretches the physical therapist taught me and worked with me on perfecting have helped tremendously.

I'd say a good yoga or even water aerobics program to loosen muscles and strengthen joints would allow more freedom of leg movement for your mounts and dismounts as well as your riding in general.

Bill
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Old 12-02-08 | 10:38 AM
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A comment on Yoga. I have a friend who is dedicated to Yoga which apparently involves a lot of strange positions involving static stretching. She has demonstrated several. It made me cringe and explains to me at least, her chronic back problems.

In Physical Activity and Health (current college level textbook), it comments that you better work out and really build yourself up before you get into Yoga because of the stress. Unfortunately, it's not listed in the index (nor is stretching) so I can't provide the quote: it's a really big and complex book.

Yoga is a fad like soy. Some Indians did practice it down through the ages, but they also practice drinking their own urine. Gandhi practiced the latter. If you go Indian, you might as well go all the way.

On soy, I've read it's best to stick to the fermented variety. I've read three studies where folks who eat a lot of Tofu during midlife seem to suffer brain/intellect shrinkage. Fermenting apparently rids soy of some damaging ingredients.

The devil is in the details as always.

Al
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Old 12-19-08 | 09:56 AM
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Originally Posted by yrrej
Does anyone know of any exercises/stretches that
could make my hips a bit more flexible?

Thanks,

Jerry
Jerry- I have 2 suggestions:

1. Foot Massage. Prior to putting on your socks get a tennis ball. Sit in a non-padded chair. Place the tennis ball on a hard floor. Place one foot on the ball and move your feet back-to-front, side-to-side, and around in circles. Apply more pressure, but not so much that it will hurt. Change feet and repeat. Alternate feet a couple of times, put on your socks and shoes and go for a ride, walk, whatever. I do this when watching television so that I'm not totally wasting time.

Here's what it does. Your brain directs your body parts through sensory responses. Sensory response from your feet is numbed by the shoes that we wear. Thus this "bond" between brain, legs and feet needs to be reestablished on a regular basis. Controlled studies have shown that after this simple massage most people instantly develop more flexibility in their hamstrings. Cool, eh?

2. Pilates matwork. I have been doing Pilates for many years and it is a great way to develop flexibility. It was originally developed for rehab, and it is used for that purpose by many dance companies, including the American Ballet Company to help their injured dancers regain flexibility. It's beauty is that the movements can be scaled and controlled to modify the stretch, and all of the stretching is dynamic. Be certain not to overstretch as that, as an earlier poster stated, will result in less flexibility.

Everyone that considers dynamic stretching important also agrees that it should never be done with "cold" muscles. Either warm up or follow the beginner Pilates order and by the time you get to the right movements you will be plenty warm.
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Old 12-19-08 | 11:59 AM
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Originally Posted by alcanoe
A comment on Yoga. I have a friend who is dedicated to Yoga which apparently involves a lot of strange positions involving static stretching. She has demonstrated several. It made me cringe and explains to me at least, her chronic back problems.

In Physical Activity and Health (current college level textbook), it comments that you better work out and really build yourself up before you get into Yoga because of the stress. Unfortunately, it's not listed in the index (nor is stretching) so I can't provide the quote: it's a really big and complex book.

Yoga is a fad like soy. Some Indians did practice it down through the ages, but they also practice drinking their own urine. Gandhi practiced the latter. If you go Indian, you might as well go all the way.

On soy, I've read it's best to stick to the fermented variety. I've read three studies where folks who eat a lot of Tofu during midlife seem to suffer brain/intellect shrinkage. Fermenting apparently rids soy of some damaging ingredients.

The devil is in the details as always.

Al
course we all know what is best for us
and we'll do what WE think
there is no standard or 'baseline' around which we can measured, so its really what you want and expect...
so far I haven't found any real-life example of perfection in this world, but have found many attributes I would be happy to have, and many I dread. Societally, Indian culture has its strong points as well as weak (from my stilted perception), but I'm happy to adopt/adapt any part which seems meritorious. Same applies to any other things I learn about.
just because Jim Fixx croaked at 52, doesn't in any way undermine the basic principles he championed.
https://www.simpsonassociatesinc.com/fixxbook.html

Entering the home stretch of 'being', there is way more upside than downside to:
1. Being more mentally and physically fit than 'not'.
2. Being stronger, rather than weaker
3. Being more flexible, rather than inflexible
4. Using better quality fuel, rather than low grade stuff
5. Being more mindful, rather than less
6. Being more a 'student' rather than 'sheeple'

Certain or not, about what we are and do; we certainly are betting our own lives on what we think we know
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Old 12-19-08 | 06:42 PM
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Jim Fix did outlive his dad by a good number of years as I remember. It was apparently a bad genetic issue and he should have been on medication if one existed in those days. As far as Indian culture is concerned, normally cultures evolve to suit the environment and necessities of life of a particular region as well as the inhabitant's genetic temperament that's evolved over thousands of years.

The only problem I have with other cultures is that many don't have the correct attributes for the rule of law and the associated type of economic system to raise the majority of their populations out of poverty. Examples include India, China and Mexico. I've wanted to travel to the back-country of Mexico for decades, but wont go because of their so-called legal system has no due process. Of course now there's the open drug warfare.

By the way, the urine thing is among the intellectuals and is perfectly safe as the stuff is germ free if one is mostly healthy. I wouldn't do it, but there are many things American they wouldn't do either.

My comment was geared to the fact that many people view things from the more mystical (to us) cultures as emanating from some higher form of wisdom and therefore should be followed. Soy and Yoga are on the top of my list fitting that description. There's no scientific basis for either, therefore, I have no desire to do either as I have other more productive options for my time and diet.

I have a personal baseline which evolvs as I filter through more information. There are several standard baselines promoted by the "experts" in various areas like nutrition, cardio health etc. Unfortunately, these baselines are tainted by poor science and the conflicts of interests due to the large amount of money to be made. And that includes the famous but erronious if not fraudulent attempts of the FDA with their numerous food pyramids.



Al
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Old 12-20-08 | 12:12 AM
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In the interest the OP's original query I offer this website for suggestions on possible stretching exercises for his condition. I offer this advice, though: I find it is more pleasant to stretch when your body is first warmed-up by a short jog or some other cardio-vascular exercise - just maybe 3 or 4 minutes. I won't tell you if I think stretching is bad or good. Your results are all that matter, not the NY Times and certainly not my opinion.
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