More of the same old same old. Ha, ha. 0311 is playing with me.
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Originally Posted by 0311
I just posted it to raise my post count.  |
LOL, wouldn't want to see you fall behind! But I'm going to take that as you egging me on
especially being as that you haven't adressed any of my arguments!
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Originally Posted by 0311
but the lengthy stretch times is necessary to activate the golgi tendon's stretch reflex.
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Are you kidding? Who came up with that? The stretch reflex is activated immediately once you reach a certain threshold. If you don't go past that point, and the nervous system "senses" that the stretch is not actually dangerous, the the reflex relaxes. This is the traditional way to do static stretches. It's not about "activating" the reflex. It seems to me it's about sustaining it, producing tension. Which, to me, means, basically, going to the point of damage, the whole point of bag theory, which I have been arguing against the validity of.
All of this is just people saying something, which of course doesn't make it true. Proving it makes it true (or at least makes it look true).
As I said before, I am not debating whether the stretching is valid. I am debating the mechanism. Why? One, I don't like it when people present theories as proven fact. Two, the way the stretching is presented, and especially the idea of "increasing" the stretch week to week, can potentially cause more than "microtrauma".
Look, when I started doing this, I went against my instinct. What I had learned about stretching the hard way. Dante, or any of these other guys, didn't invent forced stretching. It's somewhat mediated by the muscles being warm and whatnot (which is always necessary in stretching) but one has to assume that this damage is resulting in a desirable remodeling of tissues and not in stiffening and formation of scar tissue setting you up for a torn muscle later on. We all know good and well that a future injury can be potentiated by something we do now.
If anything, a week off like in the Wilson article, is a good thing. But I'm not saying I have the answers, or even that I can find them. I still have a lot of reading to do and I have to try to understand it.
Here is a little of what I'm talking about
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Originally Posted by Kurtz
There are two mechanisms for the origin of gradual-onset injuries. The first, obvious to most athletes, is when tissues stressed by exercises do not have enough time or nutrition to rebuild between workouts and so are gradually torn down to the point at which they come apart. The result—a muscle, a tendon, a ligament, or a joint cartilage is torn, or a bone is broken.
The second mechanism is less obvious because the stressed tissues are supplied well with nutrition and have enough rest time to rebuild themselves or even grow bigger: the loads are too great or occur too often for new tissues to mature. Maturation of tissues involves orientation of collagen fibers along the lines of mechanical stress and production of enough of a matrix (ground substance) to preserve the normal collagen-to-matrix ratio and to prevent excessive bonding of collagen fibers (Hertling and Kessler 1996).
Not allowing new tissues to mature makes them rigid, not extensible, so they do not damp the forces applied to them by extending and then returning to their original shape. They either break down or pass on these nonattenuated forces to other tissues. For example, increased stiffness of a tendon (fibrosis) increases the strain on its attachment to the bone, leading to inflammation and eventual separation from the bone. In the case of increased stiffness of bone (sclerosis) under joint cartilage, the cartilage is excessively stressed by loading because it lies between stiffer-than-normal bones—between a rock and a hard place. (Bone hypertrophies quicker than joint cartilage in response to loading because bone has a good blood supply and cartilage does not.)
Gradual-onset injury initially announces itself by intermittent dull pain not severe enough to stop the athlete from exercising. If the athlete ignores this light pain the injury is aggravated and the pain is felt during and continuously after the exercise. If further ignored the injury progresses to an acute injury that may require an operation and may end an athletic career.
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Originally Posted by 0311
I personally think the fascia stretching is best utilized for the recovery aspects.
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I tend to agree. I am, however, beginning not to like the term "fascia stretching" for reasons stated above. Faster recovery can, after all, lead to more muscle growth over a given period of time. But the faster recovery caused by stretching, as I understand it, has nothing to do with fascia remodeling.
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There's some speculation about stretching activating gene expression with satellite cells.
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Yes. And other speculations.