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Old 03-27-2006, 11:21 AM
EricT EricT is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2005
Posts: 6,314
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Here I go again on this. I know this will go largely ignored but I wanted to post it anyway.


Although I've preached caution on this "extreme stretching" I STILL believe that it is something worth doing and can have defitnite benefits. Do I believe that the fascia or other connective tissues are something you can stretch like a piece of silly putty and then have it wait around for you to fill it in with muscle? No.


The problem I have with all this is not the statement that the stetching can facilitate more muscle growth. It is with the bag theory. The more I read that, the more problems I had with it. To be truthful, it sounds completely ridiculous and simplistic to the point of absurdity. It dos NOT fit the definition and the role of connective tissues.

I attempted a LOT of reasearch on this in the past week or so. There is not much to be found. But the bag theory is just not credible. It is nothing more than an assumption.

Now, I am not one who thinks that science and research are always the answer. If something works, it works. And I trust the experience of those who are infinitely more advanced and invested in bodybuilding than I. However, believing the bag theory, and subscribing to this as the explanation for the phenomenom known as muscle memory, could lead us to do things that are unnecessay or even dangerous. That's right, I said dangerous. And anyway, the bag theory is supposed to be science, so there.

You CAN hurt yourself stretching even without it being ballistic type stretching or without someone applying sudden force. Why do you think the stretch reflex exists? For one, it is to keep you from stretching to the point of damage. It kicks in faster during dynamic or ballistic stretching, yes. But is kicks in during static or loaded stretching, also. This we well know.

The fascia, including the tendons, and other connective tissues are not infinitely flexible. It is possible to stretch the fascia to the point of rupture. To me, the fascia is not a "bag". This makes it sound like a plastic sack with your muscle stuffed into it. It is tightly bonded to the tissue it surrounds. What do you think would happen if it were badly ruptured? The muscle belly would come poking through it. In fact, in the link I will provide, someone talks about this happening.

Muscle memory? Fascia and other connective tissues don't function independently of muscle. They are what allows muscle to perform it's function and apply force on the bone. The idea that you can expand it like a bag and have it REMAIN EXPANDED for some prolonged period of time while the muscle atophies and then expands to fill it again -- give me a break. Your skin doesn't even work that way normally. And when you do expand your skin to the point where it is no longer elastic enough to recover, um, well, this is a BAD thing. If the fascia was able to expand in this way it would effect the function of the muscle in a very negative way. To me this is common sense.

When I first started seeing this, I recognized some of it as coming from the experiment with weights being hung on birds wings. I think they were chickens. It is mentioned in the article I posted: "Hyperplasia vs. Hypertrophy.

Here is a good discussion of it. There are links to studies provided that I think will help illuminate why this works.

FortifiedIron Fascia Stretching Discussion

I am going to keep stretching. But I'm going to further my reading on this to try and figure out what is absolutely necassary.
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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.

Last edited by EricT; 03-27-2006 at 11:29 AM.
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