Tight Hips? Stop Static Stretching!
October 1st, 2009
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by Mike T Nelson · Filed Under: Mobility
Static Stretching is Dead, Mobility Is In
The Denver RollerDolls – Yuletide Beatings: Nutkrackers vs Jinglebelles @ The Denver Coliseum Photo by Jason Sheats
This is not earth shattering news to you the loyal reader, but it does beg the question
What can I use mobility for that I would use static stretching for?
Pretty much EVERYTHING!
I personally did TONS of static stretching for a long time to work on my posture issues. For those that don’t know, I’ve had scoliosi for quite some time, neck issues (torticollis, once at birth and once about 2 years ago – it pinned my right ear to my right shoulder), suppression of my right eye, complete thoracotomy when I was 4.5 years old for an atrial septal defect, tons of old injuries, etc. I am not stating this to complain in any way, since I am actually extremely thankful for all my “issues” since it drives me to try and investigate all sorts of potential solution. Just stating that I can relate to those with old injuries.
Static Stretching to the Rescue?
After all the static stretching I did, it resulted in exactly bup-kiss, nada, zippo, zelch for changes. I did see some short term change, but I had to keep doing it over and over and over and over for longer and longer periods of time; hoping it would result in long term change. Nope. Add to this the piles of research studies showing that static stretching before training makes you WEAKER. I don’t need any help in that dept, thank you. I want to be stronger, not weaker and I know you do too!
Mobility work (when done correctly) increases range of motion (ROM) and makes you STRONGER. Sign me up!
Try This
Here is a video for all of you to try. Seriously, try it and let me know what you find. My bet is that by only watching this video and doing it, about 50% of you will see an immediate change.
If you can see an immediate change like that, why would you static stretch?
Offer
What other popular “pre-hab” drills do you do that you want to see a mobility alternative for?
- Scap wall slides?
- External shoulder rotation?
- Glute activation?
- Psoas/ hip flexor work?
- Others?
Put a comemtn below and I will tally them up this Sun at high noon central time and get the video up to you next week.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
PS
Get those comments in!
Comments RSS 
This basically seems like a parlor trick, particularly after watching the video several times and trying it on myself.
First, the ‘client’ does not appear to be attempting to push his hips as far forward on the first attempt as the second.
Second, simply doing this ‘hip flexor’ stretch twice (without the hand/shoulder rotation aspect) resulted in an increase of ran of motion for me, this effect is easy as attributable to ‘warming up’ from just remaining in this position and trying the movement twice.
Third, the shoulder/hand rotation just makes your hip stabilizers fire, which is most likely the mechanism by which any ‘range of motion’ increase is seen.
Nevertheless, this is one of the first real ‘demonstrations’ of z-health i’ve seen that are not just a bunch of fancy terms (eg. arthrokinetic reflex, or listing the types of sensory receptors) and extensive hand waving as to the underlying mechanisms.
I would like to see your suggestions for glute & transverse abdominals activation. Would it be OK if I tried to skew the vote by followed the political practice of voting early and often? :~)
Simple, elegant application of opposing joint action neural mirroring response. Shoulder flexion increases hip extension in opposing side of the body.
Chris Dahms, if you read some books on neurology you will find this is more than a mere parlor trick, it is human neurology applied to improving sports performance.
In fact, famous Neurophysiologists use this to get people to walk again who are paralyzed from the waist down. It is too complicated to get into in this posting, and I admit I don’t fully understand it myself, but working the opposing joint in an opposing joint motion improves joint functioning in it’s opposing opposite. I do this all day long with clients to relieve pain, increase range of motion, improve strength, etc.
Mike did a wonderful job with this.
Chris,
You can try it a few times on your own to get your “baseline” for static stretching in that position.
Then try the shoulder drill, do it nice and slow and only move from the shoulder (keep the upper trap quiet).
To make the shoulder drill a bit better, hold on to something while you are doing the shoulder drills to eliminate any balance component. I did not show this in the video, since I did not it to seem like the athlete was cheating by pushing from a chair.
In my experience, when the drill is done correctly without any balance component, the ROM improves in about 70% of athletes that I have tested (again, informal and non published data)
True, there may be some more stabilization of the hip going on from the shoulder position; but if that allows a greater ROM is that really a “bad” thing?
I have some more demos coming up soon that you can try also, so stayed tuned. I appreciate the feedback as I tend to go quite batty on the science uber geek stuff here. Ironically, with most athletes I keep it incredibly basic (mental note, I should use that voice more here then).
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Got it noted Noel!
Sure, feel free to skew the vote as much as you want and get all your friends to vote here too! I also take bribes too. hehehe.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Hey Mike:
The website is still not fully functional, but I thought I would include it. I (like Noel) would like to see some drills for glute activation and transverse abdominus activation.
Cool stuff!
Thanks,
Steve
Thanks for the great comments Brian and awesome to see you post here! I always learn a ton from you. (and your check is in the mail–ha!).
The techy term is normally interlimb coupling and perhaps some contribution from central pattern generators.
In English, humans are wire to walk (bipeds); so their are some hard wires reflexes that reflect this. By extending the opposite shoulder it corresponds to the opposite hip motion. Note when walking how the arms movements are related to the legs.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Got it down Steve!
Very excited to see the new site! Awesome!
I will be gone tomorrow until Sunday afternoon, so comment approvals may be a bit slow as a heads up.
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Hey Mike,
Just curious if you could explain the wrist positioning? Wasn’t sure if that was specific to this individual / situation, as having the palm open like that differs from what you learn in R-phase (thumb on top), palm closed.
~L
Hi there Leslie!
Good question.
What you learn in I-Phase is that you can then play around with the position of the other mirror joints too.
Since his left ankle is in extension, most get a better benefit (ROM) with the right hand in flexion (palm down toward bottom of forearm). In this case, it worked better for his wrist in the current position (which I seem to find in lifters, KB friends and desk jockeys).
Play around with it and see what works best!
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Cool — thanks.
I tried this hip flexor drill on myself, but varied it to by holding on to a chair to reduce startle and did the same exact wrist position with the contralateral arm as well as an additional arm circle with the same-side arm, and it worked for me (hadn’t tried this one before) slash got more ROM than I have had for months I think, and I’ve been doing this very hip flexor stretch except pulsing every 5s as they suggested we do at the RKC.
Before this I was focusing on bring the bottom knee forward and then relaxing into the stretch, turning my eyes to the left or right depending on the bottom leg to facilitate extension on one side, and all these things helped, but interestingly not as much as arm circles done at 8s for each circle on both arms 2-3x reps each.
This might actually be a better drill than the lateral ankle tilt / shoulder ROM I was thinking of doing were I ever to do an IRB-approved scientific study on these Z-health / neurology hacks. What do you think Mike?
I always see the “scientifically-proven” buzzword on the Z-health web site but as far as I can tell Z-health as a system or even reduced to a single technique hasn’t been proven per se in a peer-reviewed scientific sense, so to me this just makes the Z-health web site less credible (as does the complete lack of pictures of real people and the way overdone copy which makes it hard to stomach really even for me).
Best,
~Leslie (now blogging for http://ultitraining.com =)
[...] stretch on YouTube. Another approach is to focus on contralateral shoulder mobility as in Z-Health, doing coordinated mobility drills to hack your nervous system into letting your hip flexors (the ones you are stretching are connecting to the knee on the [...]
all he does is lean forward more….Can you show a better example?
I’d like to see drills for a tight rectus femoris
Mike
i have to kind of agree with your first poster.
You and i both know it works, but it doesn’t LOOK right, does it? it does look like he’s just leaning over.
I’ve used this video with folks, when talking about your great z work as an example of the effectiveness of z and have gotten the same kinds of comments back: yes it worked for me and gee that doesn’t look right.
So i don’t think chris is saying it doesn’t work; just that the video isn’t the best demonstration – it’s too bad your model leaned forward rather than staying upright?
best
mc
[...] Tight Hips? Stop Static Stretching! [...]
Leslie,
Great thoughts. Personally, I would LOVE to see someone do a study on the talocalaneal joint and hamstring function or cuboid and glute med, navicular and psoas and/or middle cunneform and rectus femoris as I can’t find any direct literature on them. You can infer them from the gait cycle and they are rumored to be taught in AK, but I have not seen them in print anywhere.
The other hacks you can get at by inter limb coupling and just doing the opposite, although it is still cool!
As to the marketing of Z-Health, I don’t work for them in any capacity; so I can’t comment on it as I don’t control it at all.
Scientifically proven can mean tons of things. While it is true that many of the neuro connections taught in Z-Health are not proven in a RCT in a peer reviewed journal, the concepts are all based on science and there is literature to support them.
Even the arthrokinetic reflex was published by Cohen in AJP in 1955 (in cats)! That concept is not new, it is just not used by anyone else.
Athletic performance training at the highest level is both a science and an art.
rock on
Mike T Nelson
Reference
Arthrokinetic Reflex of the Knee
Leonard A. Cohen 1 and Manfred L. Cohen 1
1 From the Department of Physiology and Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
The knee joint of decerebrate cats was rotated through a full range of flexion-extension movements. The tensions of quadriceps femoris muscle and semitendinosus muscle were recorded and the responses of these muscles to joint movement were studied. The medial and posterior articular nerves were later sectioned and control records were taken. Flexion of the knee decreased the tension of quadriceps femoris but increased that of semitendinosus. Re-extension of the knee restored both tensions to their resting values. Data were obtained which showed that these responses were reflex in nature. Since the knee joint reflex is basically a slow adapting movement reflex, the name ‘arthrokinetic reflex’ seems appropriate. The activity of the arthrokinetic reflex indicates that its general function is to coordinate knee movement with other nervous activity in thigh muscles. In addition to this, the arthrokinetic reflex of the knee appears to have specific orientation toward dealing with the powerful stretch reflex of the quadriceps femoris muscle.
Submitted on June 23, 1955
Max,
I have you down for RF.
Did the drill do anything for you?
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
MC,
I agree that he does lean more forward, but I decided to leave the cues as simple as possible to not influence the outcome. He did report that it felt a ton better and it seems to work for most (again not all, but hey, this is just a video without any explanation on how to do it with 100% precision).
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
The votes are in and the vote is for a redo of the above example.
I have a few athletes coming over this week, so I will get it filmed and up by this coming Friday for all of you.
Much appreciate the comments!
Rock on
Mike T Nelson
Mike-
I tried it myself and saw a little bit of change. But, I wasn’t doing the shoulder circles as slowly, and I already have decent ROM in the hip flexors.
Something else I saw that was interesting was where he was looking during the stretch, basically maintaining neutral spine and letting the line of sight deviate naturally. I wonder if that in and of itself helped me as well…
I’d be interested to see something to help with tight neck and/or trap muscles…I seem to be chronically tight there.
[...] Tight Hips? Stop Static Stretching [...]
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