The lowdown on stretching: How flexible do you actually need to be?

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We tend to think that being flexible will help with things like pain and posture. In truth, stretching can be beneficial, but probably not for the reasons you think. Learn about the lowdown on stretching for free as part of New Scientist's exercise week

, and has the added bonus that it keeps the hips, calves and ankles mobile through the range of motion needed to walk, run and otherwise move around in the world.by researchers at the University of Salford, UK, suggested that this has a real impact on range of motion. People who regularly sat for less than 4 hours a day and were generally active had 6 degrees more range of motion in their hip joints than less active people who sat for more than 7 hours.

What’s more, it isn’t just the physical act of sitting that leaves us feeling tight. Concentrating on a mental task contributes to tension in the shoulder girdle, arm and neck. This is partly because when we focus our eyes on a screen, we often tense our shoulders to increase our ability to focus visually . One, which help keep the head upright, are particularly sensitive to the difficulty of the task – the more we need to concentrate, the more they tense up.

For a start, the degree of flexibility you need very much depends on what you plan to do with your body. Normal human movement only requires the hips to be sufficiently flexible to allow the legs to extend backwards to an angle of 30 degrees from upright. In other words, for everyday activities, you only really need the flexibility to get halfway to the splits, at most, and there is little reason to push your hips any further.

“There isn’t strong evidence that flexibility correlates with things that are hugely important for our health” Tilp also says it is a lack of movement, rather than a lack of stretching per se, that causes us to stiffen up in the long term. “We know that when you get older, you become less flexible.” But “if you move your joints through the whole range of motion, that just keeps the flexibility”, he says. Tilp, too, recommends prioritising strength throughout the whole range of motion of the joint.

 

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Flexibility, according to common wisdom, is not only impressive to look at, but something we should actively work towards Scientifically, however, the question of whether we should stretch to become more flexible has been difficult to answer

This was written in 2021 so it’s 2 years old…. too old really - if you would like to commission an up to date piece - do contact/DM me. Best wishes.

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