Think Before You Stretch

Learning to  feel good in your body is important to your physical health. For most people, that entails feeling the need to stretch daily to achieve this feeling of unwanted tension. As an educator in the practice of  Physical Therapy with an emphasis on corrective movement, optimal posture and positional breathing, I have covered the topic of stretching in my last Strive to Learn Session. We discussed taking another approach with movements that will be more effective and long lasting over time instead of some of the common poses and stretches that I see in the gym, on youtube and elsewhere. We need to be more mindful and apply purpose to what we are doing. In the case of finding comfort, I talked about looking at the position of the structures that we are stretching and paying attention to the body as a “whole” system. Most individuals experience the feeling of tightness and don’t feel comfortable in their body because the skeletal structures are at an imbalance. These imbalances are partly due to patterns that have been acquired throughout your life, secondary to innate internal asymmetries and environmental right sided dominance. Through my study of the body and a deep dive into Postural Restoration, I have discovered tightness or the feeling of tightness in a joint doesn’t require stretching but rather the structure requires a better position. Through the process of positioning and breathing into those spaces, we can use pressure management to safely unwind and sense security on our joints. The long term effect is long lasting and most of all, provides a safer move to the body without causing harm or further biomechanical issues.