Welcome to Safe Stretch
Stretching has benefits – increasing physical fitness and range of movement, improving posture, reducing stress, easing pain and fatigue, and stretching has dangers – sprains, strains, hypermobility and overflexibility. If it is done correctly stretching can help improve posture but if done incorrectly it can exagerate poor posture. This book provides stretches that are safe, explains how to avoid the dangers and shows you how to improve your posture.
Everyone is different and a ‘one size fits all’ approach to stretching is dangerous. Individual differences in posture and flexibility exist because of genetic and lifestyle factors, our age, emotions, and history of injury. Safe stretch is a stretching book which takes these difference into account.
Safe Stretch explains how to stretch and provides an extensive list of stretches that are safe. Some stretches and yoga postures are absolutely unsafe and should not be done under any circumstances. Other stretches are relatively safe. Because humans are different, some stretches will be OK for some people but not for others. How and if relatively safe stretches are done depends on who is doing them. Some stretches are safe and unless the person doing them has a prexisting disease or dysfunction then they can be done without harm.
A huge range of variation exists in the shape of human beings – tall or short, stocky or thin. The shape of the human body is important because it influences flexibility. The size and shape of the bones and joints determines joint range of movement. Generally a slim person will have greater flexibility than a stocky person and a stocky person will have greater stability than a skinny person. Other factors act to exagerate or counter the influence of body size by increasing or decrease flexibility.
Different people are born with different degrees of elasticity in their ligaments and joint capsules. Ligaments are the first level of support for the body, the ‘elastic bands’ holding the bones together. The flexibility and strength of ligament depends on the amount of collagen, elastin and other materials in the ligament.
A range flexibility exists across all human beings, very flexible or hypermobile people at one end of the spectrum and stiff or hypomobile people at the other end, and following a typical bell curve pattern most people are in the middle.
Lifestyle factors influencing our mobility. Sedentary activities such as desk work, driving a car, and sitting watching TV affect our body – muscles become weaker and shorter, ligaments become less elastic and there are changes within the joints and they get stiffer.
Injuries to a muscles or ligaments leads to scaring and adhesions – fibrous tissue which is less elastic and less strong as the original tissue. These should be a temporary tissues bridging the damaged tissue and new healthy tissue. If however the injury is does not receive treatment or is over-rested the body may retain this tissue and the area will be weaker and less flexible. Anxiety, depression and mental issues can increase muscle tension, change our posture and cause stiffness.
Depening on the cause, stiffness can affect the whole body or it can be localised to one joint or a small area of the body. Most stretching problems occur when stiffness is localised and excessive force and leverage is applied in the execution of the technique.
Safe stretch is a comprehensive list of safe stretching exercises suitable for beginners interested in learning the techniques and professionals wanting to know what happens and why. There are lots of exercises and the book contains hundreds of photographs and line drawings showing stretches for every part of your body. Each stretch is marked with key symbol which make it possible to combine the stretches in different ways for different sports and activities and target the right muscles. In addition there are mini-routines for when you are short of time.
Safe Stretch covers different stretching routines: at the office, during pregnancy, stretches for older participants, playing musical instruments, before and after sports, specific sports like running, golf, swimming, cycling, and throwing and racket sports and a variety of popular activities.
The book explains which muscles are stretched and which joints move during each exercise. It makes recommendations on how the muscles should be stretched safely, which joints or areas should be moved and which areas should not.
Safe stretch is a great reference book. It covers three types are stretching techniques: active stretching, passive stretching and isometric PNF stretching and combines elements of yoga with stretching. The bullet points take you through the techniques in a straight forward way, step-by-step and the descriptions are easy to follow.
Safe stretch is suitable for a trainer, sports coach, athlete, massage professional, osteopath, physiotherapist, yoga teacher or student, dancer, anatomist, naturopath, medical doctor, exercise physiologist, and the lay person who would like to know more.
Safe Stretch will be available from July 2012 at a cost of AU $80. Advanced orders are possible. Just fill out the contact form and I will contact you when the book is ready.