Ep. 11 Stretching

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The act of stretching is an act of effort and desire to reach for our best selves while maintaining flexibility in the wake of life's wins. Hello friends. You are listening to the All Things Good for you podcast. I'm your host, Brian Bowen, founder of.

Integrative Health, Inc. And I'm Amy Christiansen, your co host and creator of Amy Christensen Health and Wellness Coaching.

Join us as we explore the world of health and wellness and all things that make you feel good. From ancient traditions to modern advancements and technologies that give you the tools for.

A life well lived, what new paths might you discover on your health and wellness journey? Tune in each week as we deep dive into a variety of concepts and hear from other fun, passionate health and wellness experts on their experiences and philosophies.

And remember, stay open minded and integrated.

Hello Brian.

Hello, Amy. How are you?

Well, I'm pretty fantastic. I'm on vacation.

I know. I'm super jealous. I saw the little beach video that you sent and I feel like we should be recording live from there. And obviously you are recording live from there, but it doesn't count unless I'm there too. No, I'm just kidding.

I'm jealous though. We should totally start traveling for our podcast. I'm down with that. Yeah.

Hello. I mean, we really. It's not about us, it's about our listeners getting a true experience and more of the essence of what we're vibing when we're talking about some of these. So, you know, it's not being all.

Yeah, and being on a beach is definitely good for you.

Yeah, it's very, very good. I love it. You're kind of incorporating a lot of previous podcasts into this one because you are experiencing really that parasympathetic state you're in, your alpha state, brain waves, you're working on your breath work, you're getting some movement in like you're building on all of our previous podcasts. And now we get to. I'm sure you've done some stretching on the beach, which is what we're going to talk about today.

Yes. And yoga on the beach.

Awesome. Did you do a yoga class or like yoga on your own?

A class, it's like a group thing here, so that's cool.

Well, everybody run down to Marco island real quick and let's join Amy.

Yep, let's go. Come on.

Let's do this. Let's do this. So as always, we are talking about all things that are good for you and we've been covering various topics over the past months and encouraging you to reach a little bit further, sometimes out of your comfort zone to explore all aspects of health and wellness. And this one seems like a kind of a no brainer. But the reason it's important to talk about is when we are working on our patients. I will tell you that even though we know this is not necessary and the importance of it, there is definitely a lack of taking action in this category. And there's also a lot more to it than what people know. And so we're going to dive into some specifics about stretching and why it's important and different types of stretching and the yumminess of it and exploring some variations and also when to do what and when not to do what and some philosophies and ideas around that.

That's right. But you said it's a no brainer. But I know that a lot of people, it's controversy about stretching and whether you should and when and how. There's a lot of people who think it's unnecessary in general. But I feel like again, it's one of those topics that you can find research to support your opinion if you really wanted to. So if you don't look at all the different supporting evidences, you may not being a true health investigator, which we are.

Yes, yes, we totally are. And I think it's important still remember, part of this whole journey with us is to help you fine tune and become aware of what, what your body's telling you, what feels good to you, what doesn't feel good. So sometimes we might say something or an expert might say something that kind of counters how you feel. And ultimately it's how you feel if it makes you feel yummy and makes you feel good and brings you energy. And you have to listen to that. So you know, there's some general rules and guidelines. And of course research is always changing. And I guess I say no brainer just because it's been around forever. Kind of like we know eating healthy is, is kind of seems like a no brainer. But there's a million diets out there and things of not to Eat and to eat and stuff like that. Yeah. So it seems like a no brainer, but you're right. A lot of it's changed since you and I were in elementary school and middle school and high school back in the day, where it was pretty much ballistic stretching, which we'll get into. And it's like, that was terrible, you know.

Well, I think we have to keep in mind how it's affecting your nervous system and we'll get into a little bit of the science of it. But when it comes to, like, what you said, if it feels good, that's true. If it feels really bad, don't do it. Working with patients in physical therapy, one of my favorite stretches is lower extremity stretch. What you're really stretching there is the casing around the nerves, like the tissue that's tightening up to protect your lower extremity nerves. It doesn't necessarily feel good. It's very helpful and beneficial. So I've seen it help people.

Yeah. So obviously, different types of stretching for different things. I have a list of things to read out here that are important, and then we can dive, I think, into some of those specifics, but I do like to come up with some quotes every now and then. So if I could just kick this party off a little bit. I couldn't really find a quote that I liked specifically to stretching, so I made one up. If you. Is that okay if I read this out real quick, Amy?

As long as I can quote you.

You can totally quote me if you can understand it, because I wrote it and I like what it says, but I feel like I have to explain it, which is probably makes it not a good quote, but I'm just going to say it anyway.

Okay.

So the act of stretching is an active effort and desire to reach for our best selves while maintaining flexibility in the wake of life's winds.

I like it. I like the way you've intertwined the science and the Chinese medicine.

Yeah. Well, I guess the metaphor of that is it is an effort and it's a conscious effort to spend time doing that. But the act of doing that on a physical level is we are wanting to feel our best. We're wanting to be our best, we're reaching for that. But I think that that's also a metaphor for taking that time and energy and effort and. And desire to reach for something like that and beyond it. I think it says a lot about ourselves in general. And the metaphor of the flexibility of our bodies is also represented and translates to the flexibility of our Mind and the flexibility of all this stuff in the wake of life's winds, meaning the experiences that are throwing our way and how we move and kind of bend with those. And I think, you know, yoga has a kind of a breadth of that concept and stuff like that obviously in it, but just a little different thing. Thoughts about it?

Yeah. I think one of the reasons that yoga works well is it's doing a little bit of engagement. And we'll talk a little bit more about all the different types of stretching. But anytime you tell the muscle that it can work, do its job and function, and then move it through a bit of a range of motion, you're going to get a better response and release. You're basically letting your body trust the movement. So it's going to let you stretch a bit more. And I think that's where yoga is very beneficial for joint health, among other things.

Totally agree. So why do we want to do this stretching thing? And joint health is super important. I think that you talking about the muscle, I always think about, obviously different types of stretching kind of affect different things, but we're kind of priming the muscle, right? We're kind of priming it from. For that movement that we're gonna do. And there's a very specific type of stretching that does that. So maintaining muscle fiber and fascial independence. So it's like our fibers can glide more independently when we don't take through that shortened and elongated phase. Those fibers tend to kind of glue together and they're not working as optimal as they could. And then the gliding of the connective tissue and. And being separate from the fibers as well as the nerve sheaths, like you said. So, I mean, we have so many things from performance to, you know, those things that give us reason and, heck, the list goes on. I mean, fire off a couple of your reasons why you love to stretch, Amy.

Well, it just feels good, frankly. What's that called? What's the wonderful word? Pendiculating is the act of stretch and yawning at the same time. Did you know that?

No, but I love pendiculating. And I'm going to see how many times I can work it into the conversation today. And then I'm going to use pendiculating at least a couple times tomorrow, too.

I love words.

I can remember it.

But, yeah, we do it because it feels good. You're bringing in oxygen, you're stimulating nerve feedback. We can go into the massive long list, right? You're getting improved joint mobility, your poor priming tissue kind of starting to move fluid in and out of the joint and the muscles tissue themselves open up lymphatic pathways.

Postural balance.

Postural balance. Now let's talk about that.

Well, you know, the muscle tension length relationships are really what hold our skeletal system and the optimal position under the loads and tension of gravity. And so the better our body is doing that, the better. The specific aspects of our skeletal system and space in each thing are working as shock absorbers and help us move more effortlessly with a little bit of Wu Wei through gravity and more efficiently. So therefore, even with that postural balance, it makes us look better, feel better.

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That also helps with muscle recruitment and the efficiency of muscle recruitment, which therefore also helps prevent injuries, which therefore also helps to improve performance. Because of our muscle recruitment is working better and more efficiently. So it's performance enhancing in our physical activities. And it's good, right?

It's good. It's good for you.

We want to be a sports car, not a big old Volkswagen bus. Even though those are sweet to look at, they're slow as all get out, right? And they're horrible on gas. So we want to have our kinetic chain maintained and efficient and optimized. And so again, even if you do get an injury which just helps prevent injury, it's going to help us repair and recover faster.

Okay? But as we mentioned, there's some kinds of stretches we don't want to do or maybe the timing of these stretches or different types of stretches is more impactful or could be harmful. Right?

So dynamic stretch or sorry, static stretching I think is a good one that we commonly do that has a place I think is super important. But for me, I don't know how you feel about this. I think that static stretching is definitely a combination of good time under tension with breath work, right?

We have to be able to give it all the research supports a specific time frame of holding a stretch that allows your body's tissue and nervous system to kind of recognize it and trust it and allow it to be more impactful. There's a little bit of debate even between you and I, the timing, but science pretty much presents and supports 30 seconds to one minute.

One minute, one minute.

I think it depends on the nervous system, but 30 seconds to one minute seems to be the universal play. Like, if you can at least do 30 seconds, then that's great and probably your best option.

So here's my argument for one minute on this. Not my argument, my opinion. So static stretching, just to be clear to all of you guys who aren't aware of the term, it's basically, you're putting a muscle under tension through its full length of range of motion. So, for instance, let's say your hamstring, you put your body up against the wall, you throw your leg up the wall, flex your foot back, extend your knee. So everything is locked out. And so that hamstring is under maximal length where it hits what's called an infeel. And so that infill is that point to where it's like, okay, I feel that I don't want to go anymore because I want to be safe, but I feel it. And so as you're laying there and you take a couple slow breaths in, 5 seconds into your nose, 5 second out as that sympathetic state, like we know when we're in sympathetic, right, Muscle tension wants to be there. So you lay down and you start to stretch, and you've had a stressful day and you go into a stretch. The reason I think a minute's important is because it gives you time to work a little more with your breath to bring you from that sympathetic to parasympathetic. And those muscles can let go a little bit more in time under tension. You are going to get a little bit more with the breath work. And doing that where I feel like 30 seconds. For the average person who is not doing this on a regular basis, it's just not enough time for them to really get into it, put that time under tension, get out of their nervous system a little bit. So it gives a little bit more breathing room and allows for maximal potential, right?

And I think even 30 seconds can make an impact for sure. And like I said, it depends on your nervous system, right? It depends how quickly you can move into that parasympathetic system. But to your point, it's difficult for people to get there in 30 seconds. I think in physical therapy world, 30 seconds is better than one minute. And just if that's what it takes to get somebody to stretch, like, not to be afraid of the time is to just get in there and count to 30. I mean, sometimes we do 10 to 20 seconds on some things for sure.

And the act of doing, listen, I'd rather have you do it and build on it. Maybe you start with 30 seconds. And for some people, they have to, like, we always have to modify everything. Some people, we have to modify that static stretch. Maybe some people can't get down on the floor and do that, whatever. So sometimes it's modifying the act, the stretch itself. And then I think it's completely fine that maybe you start with 30 seconds and then you work your way up to a minute just to get in the habit and routine of doing it. Right. So you have that achievable goal. So I give anybody kudos. That takes time to do it. But I do still feel like there's a beautiful opportunity. Opportunity. Especially with static stretching, it can be very meditative, right? Like, you can. It gives you an opportunity just to lay there and breathe and like, feel your body, like, just really pay attention to what you're feeling. So I think that to give that other depth of perspective for people just jumping into this is seize the opportunity to find this as a meditative experience too.

Well, yeah, and what we're actually scientifically doing is other than just like we mentioned, you're elongating the muscle, you're breaking up myofascial tension, you're creating fluid flow into the muscle tissue, and you're stimulating your lymphatic system. We're doing all those good things in the postural balance, right? Well, what did you want to add about the postural balance?

Just real quick one note, like on the static stretching. I think static stretching, if you are somebody who is doing a repetitive thing, or let's just say you're at your desk for eight hours a day or whatever, muscles and tissue go through what's called adaptive shortening, meaning if you bring point A and point B closer together for a long period of time, so the muscle origin and insertion and it's there for a long period of time, it's going to shorten. So it's very important for you to Understand some of your patterns and positions, and ask for help from a therapist, whether it's a massage therapist, physical therapist, posturalignment specialist, whatever. And to help you to figure that out so that you are actively focused on putting some of those static stretches into that tissue that has had adaptive shortening. I know that that's a mouthful, but basically when you're doing something repetitive, it's putting bad, bad input in there sometimes. And we need to focus some of our static stretching on that to help with that postural correction, that postural balance, that kinetic chain.

And another way or point to remind people is your body does very well what you demand of it on a regular basis. So what you do all the time is what you're reinforcing. So if you're going to remain shortened and poor posture or poor firing of certain muscle groups, your body's going to get really good at repeating that. But if you can focus on firing different muscle groups, perhaps better than they are now, or lengthening, stretching, movement, fluidity, your body's going to get better at doing that the more often you do it. All right, basically, what's happening when you're in a stretch, regardless of what you're doing or how muscle stretches first, then the tendon, the ligament, right? And all of that is affected by your collagen, elastin, the elasticity of your collagen. We have like 28 different types of collagen in our body. Well, most of our body and the esthetics are made up of like 1, 2, and 3 collagen. Like 1 is the bone, ligament, tendon, and skin. Type 2 is less organized in your cartilage. And then type 3, it's organs more in the soft muscle tissues. That type 1 collagen is what you're losing in your skin as you get older. Collagen is a protein, so it's really about more than just stimulating your skin or your muscle. It has a lot to do with what you eat, but also what you're breaking down and absorbing. So if your body isn't getting good protein or it's not able to break it down and absorb it, the amino acids, right, it's going to break that down, create collagen. So if we're not paying attention to what we're eating and how our gut health is, you're also challenging your collagen, your skin, your bone, your ligaments, all of that.

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We know we're not supposed to just stretch right out of the bed in the morning unless you're doing the seven.

Series joint release and pediculating and pediculating and seven series joint release. But I feel like, I feel like you are pendiculating in seven series joint release. I feel like that's feels very pendiculative.

Should just be smooth and gentle, right? Should feel good. You're not trying to force anything. It's not old adage of stretching before you go exercise, right? Like we all know the rubber band analogy. Don't stretch a cold rubber band, right? We know we're supposed to be doing more active dynamic stretching, warming up in general, which one of the research papers I was reading that was arguing against stretching was talking in favor of just doing your sport as a warmup. So just slower and easier if you're a soccer player to gentle movement through your soccer skills as a stretch. But if you think about it, if you're a soccer player or a runner and you're going to go ease into a warmup just by jogging and bouncing the ball around, you're moving your muscle and joints into a lengthening.

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Position Right. So you are stretching.

Yeah. No, absolutely. And I think, well, going back to you waking up in the morning and you know when to do some of these just to back up static stretching is typically in relation to doing a activity, a sport or something like that is done afterwards. Now if you're not doing a sport, I feel like you can do that anytime. But if you're starting to get into an activity like a nice slow warmup, taking that joint, more of a dynamic stretching where you're taking the joint or the muscle through the range of motion that it's going to be performing through. So like when I go to the gym before I do any exercise, whether it's like let's say dumbbell flies, I'll lie on my back, have zero weights in my hand and I'll go through the fly motion about 10 times. Right. Any leg extension, squats, anything, I always do that motion about 10 times before I actually load myself up with weight just to get my joints moving through that to help, you know, kind of lubricate it, make sure they're articulating right. If I feel something weird, I can stop, stretch it out in a different way, take the muscle through its full range of motion, then load it up. So kind of like what you're talking about the sports, you know, kind of that dynamic stretching is moving through it with a gentle way through that range of motion, engaging the muscles that are going to be engaged and performing that under a certain amount of rest.

Yeah, that's great. Well and like I had mentioned, like the benefits of yoga where I think you're engaging the muscle and you're triggering a trust response from your nervous system. So you're maybe putting your body or joint under a stress load, but you're doing it in an easing into it process so that the joint isn't shocked. It's not taken by surprise. I think as we already mentioned, we're just getting fluid to move into the joint and to the muscle tissue. So if we do things like the dynamic stretching or dnf, muscle energy pir, all of those are just signaling trust and a listening exchange with your nervous system in the joints. So it's allowing a safer range. What stretches do you like to do with your clients?

So when it comes to me working with my clients, so if somebody's passively stretching you, I definitely, well, let me go through a phase. So there's difference if you're stretching or somebody's passively stretching you. So if I'm passively stretching somebody, first of all, it's very important and this is something for people to tune in with themselves. There's what's called a normal infield. And so normal infield is when you feel it's moving through a full range of motion at a certain speed and then all of a sudden it hits a soft sponginess and slows down and you feel that tension on the fiber that's just so, you know, like a boundary of like where you're at in that muscle's full range of motion. So I like to take people to that because it also helps me evaluate the joint health in the muscle. So I can kind of determine what's happening at a joint level versus a muscle level. But then my favorite I still love is some pnf. So PNF is as you already know, but the listeners is proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation, which when you're doing is you will be pendiculating because there is some breath. And so that's basically you take it to a certain range of motion. So let's just say I'm at 80% because you don't want to push it too hard too fast. And then you have the person, the patient, or you can do this with yourself. You are going to engage against that resistance. So for instance, I'm bringing a hamstring or leg straight up into hip flexion and somebody pushes their leg down into my arm. As I resist back against it, I have them hold for say three to five seconds and then they stop and Then I can actually. There's a gait theory where the muscle totally relaxes for three seconds or so, and then I can actually get another 10% or 15% of range of motion out of that muscle. And they're only engaging, you know, with like 30% of their muscle strength. So they don't even have to engage that hard. But that's kind of like a person. If you're at home and you are doing that same one with the legs up the wall, maybe for the hamstring, if you push your heel into the wall and then relax, you can get more range of motion. So it's kind of like you're adding your own isometric stretch in, but then making sure you relax and take it through a further stretch and then that. Therefore, that isometric stretch then becomes a proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation.

I'm so glad we got to hear you sing on this one.

Yeah, I don't know what's happening.

So PNF also post isometric stretch, right. So you're getting a stretch, you're engaging a little bit of the muscle and then you're allowing it to rest, breathing and going through the stretch, gaining that trust. Another fun way to help engage is RI reciprocal inhibition, where you're actually engaging the antagonist muscles that you want to stretch. So if you're wanting to stretch your quads, but you do a little engagement of your hamstrings in a resistance isometric hold, and then go in to stretch the quad. If particularly it's helpful to do that if you're in a very acute stage or if you have very high pain feedback, it's better to start with the non tight muscle or non focused muscle, so the antagonist, and then move into the post isometric stretch or PNF stretch for the muscle group that you want to focus on.

Can you give the listeners just. So everybody. So think about, like to keep that simple, if you're stretching one side that you want to stretch, engage the other side. Therefore, you can put the opposite side in more of a stretch. But can you give us an example of a common stretch that we might want that people would be doing so that the viewers can get a better image of that?

Yeah, I mean, just like I said, if you wanted to do your quads and you're laying down, or you could be long sitting where you're just sitting up with your hands and your legs are stretched out in front of you, you'd bend one leg a little bit, just enough, drive your heel into the ground. That's engaging your hamstrings. And then you would. Well, I would just roll and then stretch your quads.

Okay, yes. That's the thing I wanted to clear up is it doesn't have to be like simultaneous at the same time. I can engage one, flip over, have a couple seconds between, and then still have an opportunity to get more stretch out of the opposite muscle. Or does it have to be more simultaneous?

I think you gotta be a little bit flowing because the nervous system's pretty fast. Right? So. So maybe if you're really challenged with this. A good example is like one of my knee patients. We do wall slides where they have their legs up the wall, Right. They're going to let gravity help slide their foot down. So they're technically stretching their knee and their quads. If they're struggling with that, I would have them press their heel into the wall a little bit, which just engages the hamstrings a little bit, and then relax and let the knee fall or help pull it down with a strap around the foot. So they would get better response in releasing the quad and getting knee range of motion after, they'd follow that pattern.

So so far we got some active or static stretching, which is good to do post exercise or anytime to help correct postural stuff and kinetic chain and all that good stuff. And then we have some dynamic stretching, which is good to do to take the joint and muscle through its full range of motion before a workout or before an activity. It's a good way to increase the thermal activity within the muscle tissue and blood flow and get it activated and primed. And then we got some pnf, which is good to passively done to you, but do actively yourself. And you can get more range of motion through that tissue by a gait response. And then you just brought up the reciprocal inhibition, which is activating the opposite side to get more stretch out of the other side, just to keep it simple. And then you talked about some neural stretching, which I think is probably safer to have somebody do with you if you don't know what you're doing, because that's more. First of all, there's some diagnostics involved with that. So, like, you could pandiculate. You could be doing like a cat, cat, cow and pendiculate.

Absolutely.

And then we have ballistic stretching, which. Ballistic stretching. I don't even know if we. You know, that's kind of old school, but it's got the little bouncy in it, so quicker bouncy kind of movement. So you go through a full Range of motion. So like old school, back in, you know, your high school days when your math teacher was also your gym teacher, which I don't know if that was always the best idea.

I had a great math teacher who was the football coach.

Yeah. And I didn't mean to throw anybody under the bus over that. I just remember like one of your tests, and they still do this at some places is have your legs straight out in front of you and you'd have your feet in that little metal box and there was like a slide on top and you would lean forward and try to push that and you would give it some bounces at the end. And so that therefore it's showing your fitness level by the length of your hamstring. Hamstrings, which I think is interesting. But you're adding that kind of ballistic stretch to it and it's like, I don't really know. And then, you know, the problem with ballistic stretching is you have to be careful because there's a little receptor at the tendon muscular junction called a Golgi receptor. And that thing is really determined on when there's too much tension on a tendon to have that communication with the muscle to lengthen a little bit more. And so when you're going really quick and fast, sometimes that process, if you already have tension or if you've had strain in that muscle tissue before or that muscle doesn't have great muscle function, whether it's dehydrated or just lack of use or again, the independence of the muscle fibers are kind of glued together. You really take a chance at doing some damage to the muscle fibers of the muscle tendon junction. So this would be one, I would say if you're going to add that in there, you would already have wanted to do more of an active stretch or dynamic stretching to really have the muscle warmed up to have it going in and out of its full length, creating that pumping and it's nice and fiery and primed up before you want to add any big bounces or anything. But that's just me. You got any input on the ballistics?

Yes, absolutely. All that is correct. There is some research that's talking about more.

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Bounce Rebound activity After you've been warmed up and exercise and engaging the muscles better that way. But I don't know enough research and that may be something we have to cover.

And again, listen to your body. If you're new to stretching and you're just starting to incorporate a stretch routine, then I would say just stay away from it. But again, it's just adding that extra little quick bouncy kind of stuff now. I always think about like, you know, let's say a boxer, right?

Okay.

So you have a boxer and you always see him like everybody's seen Rocky, right. So they're back there and they're warming up for the fight. There's a couple of fights going on. And so they're back there and they're. The coach has the mitts up and they're working the mitts and warming up. So that's more of dynamic, right. That's they're taking their muscles through a full length. They're warming the joints up. They're taking the joints through a full range of motion. They're not necessarily hitting things as hard as they could, you know, and all that stuff. And then next thing you know, they're so they're warmed up and now they're getting closer to the fight and you start seeing them bouncing more and kind of bouncing back and forth and you know, they're starting to add more of this ballistic stuff. So it's a progressive kind of in the warmup. Right. So they don't just jump right to that. They have more of this dynamic or active kind of stretching components first and then, you know, then after, you know, they can't do much but lay down because they're exhausted. So then they go into their static stretch.

Yep. So let's talk about a little bit of do's and don'ts.

Oh, there's one more. Can I throw out one more?

Of course.

Sorry. Loaded. Stretching. And that's like a progressive stretch where you have a Partner. And this is. You see this? And you've had this experience in yoga class, maybe, where you're stretching and the instructors come behind you. You know, maybe you're in child's pose. And then they come and put their hand on your upper back and your other hand on their sacrum and kind of pull apart and push down. And that's more of a loaded, a kind of progressive stretch, which is good. But I think, like, if you're stretching your hamstrings and you're sitting on your butt with your legs out in front of you, reaching towards your toes, and if you have a partner to come behind you and push you forward, it's cool to also, like, engage backwards against them and then relax and then have them push you further. So you're adding that PNF kind of component, right?

That's reciprocal inhibition.

Yeah, exactly.

Just be very careful with that because people can get hurt, obviously.

So. Okay, we're new to stretching. We have some ideas. Amy and I want to incorporate stretching into my life and. And spend some more time doing that. How often should we be doing this?

Well, research shows that it's more important to be consistent than worried about length of time. So as we've already said, if you could do 30 to 60, leaning towards the 60 is best. If you can work that in about five times to six times a week and focus on the one muscle group if you need to. So let's just say, I mean, you can do your whole body, that's great. But if you're going to go through a stretching program and you're not really focused, let's. You're going to stretch your calves one day and you're going to stretch quads the next day, because that's what you felt like. It's not making a big neural change in your body. So focusing on one muscle group, one minute, five to six times a week.

That'S totally doable, and I think it's good. In my opinion. I'm a big fan of diversification in all aspects of life. So maybe out of that five or six times a week, you're changing up your stretching style. Right? So maybe, you know, it's. It's static stretching on that tissue one time, and then maybe you mix it up and add a little PNF with it another time or a little more dynamic stretch or active stretch another time. So keeping the body, you know, moving in different ways, just like we were talking about, about diverse movements in one of our previous podcasts, I think is an important thing. You can bridge over to the same topic.

Yeah. Or at least just be aware that consistency of any kind is great. If you need to break it up six times a week or do a stretch focus for a week or two to a month and then add in a whole new diversity of movement for next month. Right.

And make sure. So we're talking about the do's or don'ts. So these are your take homes. Right. So the take home so far in your homework is start incorporating these, you know, five or six times a week ideally. How about we put a minimum down there as far as three, just to get you rolling. So maybe you start with three times a week, build up from there. If you're doing static stretching, 30 seconds to 60 seconds, you know, if you have to start with 30 seconds, work your way up to 60 seconds. Be diverse with some of the movements and play with some of the ones we've talked about in here. And I think it's important to work with your breath. So make sure you're slowing down your breath. Right. And working with your breath. And see like some stretches work under gravitational load where others work more against. If you're using a wall or something like that. So as you breathe and exhale, see if you can lean into that stretch just a little bit more. Right. See if you can sink into it just a little bit more. Don't push yourself past a certain threshold of pain. There's a therapeutic threshold, like when we're working on people, or at least when I'm working on people, I always tell people there's a therapeutic threshold. If you want to hit me, scream at me, yell at me, or spit on me, it's too much. And so if you want to do any of that stuff, if you're thinking of any of that, then it's too much. But find that edge because we want to make sure that you are putting the proper tension on that tissue under that time. So what's some other do's and don'ts?

Well, you know, I always think of how people can make it realistic. So like Wade said, you don't need to be cold stretching. If you're going to make it a routine as many days a week as you can, you're going to get up and pendiculate and maybe get a little Tai Chi in or go for a walk with your dog and get some easy movement warming up and then do the stretches when you're kind of awake and moving those muscles around.

I like it.

And don't overthink it, don't overthink.

Have fun. Listen to your body. I like it. Bringing movement into your stretch. I do love doing that. So sometimes you can take a step static stretch. And so let's say I am doing my hamstring. So here's a simple one. So think about your back is up against the wall, your butts touching the wall, but touching the floor, of course, because you're sitting on the floor, legs are straight out in front of you, feet flex back, knees locked out. So pretend you're trying to kiss the back of the knee to the ground. So kind of you're kind of engaging, pulling that towards the ground. So you can hang out there for, let's say, 30 seconds in a static stretch, but maybe for your second 30 seconds, you roll your femurs in and out. So you're pointing your toes in, rolling and pointing your toes out.

So it's a static stretch.

But now you've added a little bit of movement so you could do that same thing. Whether it's a pec stretch in the doorway, you know you're stretching it, hold it for static for 30 seconds, and then you can add some arm movement in there to do that. If you're standing against the wall and your back's against the wall, you bring your elbows up in a hands and back of wrists in a goalpost position. Maybe hold that for 30 seconds. Then you start doing like little wall angels for 30 seconds. So static, but then just adding a little bit of movement. It's not as crazy as, like, a dynamic stretching or super active stretching, but you're still just getting even if it's a movement of an inch or two. Right? Just to really create that thixotropic heat those fibers and really get those fascial fibers all moldy and yummy and delicious and soft is a good thing.

That sounds like cake. Everybody think cake while you're stretching. Well, that's a good process.

Yes.

Hope everybody's feeling better about stretching themselves. And I think our next podcast should be about a different type of stretching, like our personal goals and our mindsets.

Oh, I like that. I like that. Real quick, there's something that we didn't talk about here is also like. So we talked about dynamic stretching, active stretching, pnf, all this good stuff. But we didn't talk about, like, using a foam roller or like a lacrosse ball for more like myofascial stretching and things like that. So you can pin and stretch where you're taking something like a foam roller or a lacrosse ball, and you can kind of pin that Tissue down, and then you can slowly lengthen that again. So you're kind of finding tender points. And you can hold. And we call it pin and stretching. So that's good. Or just foam rolling, too. But that's a whole other conversation. I just didn't want to forget to mention that in the conversation of adding to your routine. So we can totally do a whole podcast on that sometime.

Yeah, I really do think it warrants some instruction and deeper conversation about how you can pin and stretch trigger points and myofascial tissue.

So, Amy, I have, you know, when I'm working with people, and I'm looking at, like, the fascial line, so we have this kinetic chain of these, like, lines. When I'm doing some functional tests with people, I use very specific stretches to look at that. And there's 14 of them. There's two for what we call the superficial back line, two, and they're broken up for top half and bottom half, two for the superficial front line, two for the lateral line, two for the spiral line, two for the deep front line, and two for the back arm lines and the front arm lines. But what do you think about us putting those video links up for those under this podcast? So people have. If you do all 14 of these stretches, you're stretching all the kinetic kind of lines and muscle connections. The majority of the body totally lost on where to start. If you do all four, maybe you do two one day, two the next day. You know what I mean? So, well, that's 14. Right. So we have seven days in a week. So if you did two of these every day, you're kicking butt.

I think that's awesome. We can put a link in. Show notes.

Yep. So we'll do the links to the videos. So again, there's 14 of these exercises that have videos. We'll break them up into the sections. So you're doing the top half and bottom halves together. And that way, if you're doing all 14 of these, you know, you're influencing the postural muscles and the kinetic chain for the whole body. In one week, you're doing a darn good job for your whole body. So. And I'm going to make a commitment. I'm going to do it with you.

Yeah. All right, so we'll get those on there. That's very generous of you.

I appreciate you taking time out of your beach time to spend time with us today doing this. So thank you very much, Amy.

Appreciate it. Well, thank you. Absolutely.

For you listeners, for everybody out there, thank you so much. We've gotten some great feedback on our reviews. We appreciate it. We can always use more. It looks like our Apple listeners and Spotify seems to be where most people are coming from. So if you are listening to this and you are on one of those podcasts, please please leave us a amazing five star review. And if you have something extra nice you want to say about it, we love to see it. It really energizes us and keeps us going. And as always, share this with everybody you know.

Yeah, let your friends know. Thank you very much to everybody listening and hanging out with us for a little bit today.

Thank you. Appreciate ya. Bye.

Thanks Brian. Bye. Hey friends, thank you for tuning in to the All Things Good for your Podcast. Please note any information, experiences, ideas or opinions discussed today are for educational and thought provoking purposes only and not intended as medical advice. If anything piqued your curiosity, please consult with your doctor or personal medical professional. And if you're enjoying All Things Good for your podcast, hop on over and leave us a five star review so we can continue delving in and providing great content. Thanks again and we hope you are inspired to stay informed and responsible along your health and wellness journey.

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