What are the advantages and disadvantages of flexibility training

Generally speaking, the benefits of scientific flexibility training that adapt to your own situation far outweigh the disadvantages. However, if the training method is wrong, or excessive pursuit of softness exceeds the needs, it will cause irreversible damage to the body. Currently, most of the controversy over it in the industry focuses on the use scenarios and measurement.

I have been a fitness instructor for almost 8 years, and the most exaggerated member I have ever seen was a back-end developer. He sat for 12 hours a day writing code. His shoulders and neck were so stiff that he couldn’t even go to the masseur. He could hear the joints clicking when he turned his head. When he was asked to do dynamic stretching of his shoulders and neck at the beginning, he even raised his arms above his head. The top of his head was hurting, so he spent 10 minutes before each training to slowly open his shoulders, and combined with static stretching of the pectoralis major and upper trapezius muscles. After only 3 months, he said that he no longer went to the hospital for cervical spine X-rays because of headaches and nausea, and the problem of tight hip flexion that was difficult to tie his shoes when squatting was also solved. For ordinary people who sit for long periods of time, the most intuitive effect of flexibility training is to "stretch" muscles that have been contracted for a long time, so as to prevent the tight muscles from pulling the joints out of shape. The rounded shoulders, forward head extension, and false hip width that many people gradually develop are actually due to insufficient muscle flexibility. After adjustment, not only the posture will look better, but the pressure on the joints will be reduced, and most of those inexplicable chronic pains will be eliminated. It is more practical for sports enthusiasts. I once took care of an amateur basketball player who always sprained his ankle after landing after jumping. After checking, he found that the ankle joint mobility was insufficient and the cushioning angle of the foot was not enough when landing. After a month of training on ankle flexibility and surrounding muscle strength, he never sprained his ankle again during the entire game.

But don’t think that flexibility training is a cure-all for all diseases. Over the years, I have seen many more people who have problems because of blind flexibility training than those who have achieved results. There used to be a high school student who was studying dance. In order to prepare for the art exam, his classmates helped him step on the crossbar every day. After half a month of hard pressure, he tore the medial collateral ligament. After the operation, it took almost a year to recover before he dared to run and dance normally. There is now a lot of controversy on the Internet, saying that flexibility training will reduce strength performance. In fact, this statement is not groundless. Previous sports medicine studies have shown that static stretching for more than 30 seconds before strength training or competition will indeed reduce the instantaneous output power of muscles by about 10%. Therefore, many powerlifters and weightlifters will not do long-term static stretching before competition for fear of affecting their performance. This is also the core basis for many people to oppose regular flexibility training.

Many people think that the softer, the healthier. In fact, this is not the case at all. Flexibility should match muscle strength. I met a girl before who was very soft when she was practicing dancing since she was a child. She could move horizontal and vertical forks casually, but her feet sprained every time she walked, and her waist often hurt. This was because her joints had too much mobility, but the strength of the surrounding muscles could not control such a wide range of motion, which caused the joints to lose stability. This excessive flexibility is actually more dangerous than stiffness.

When I usually make plans for members, I never ask everyone to touch their toes and reach down. For ordinary people, as long as there is no feeling of muscle pulling when moving, and the range of motion is not limited when exercising, there is no need to practice blindly in pursuit of the so-called "softness". After all, we practice flexibility to make the body comfortable, not to compete with others to see who can have a more exaggerated shape, right?