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Barrett -> Re: When and Whom to Stretch? (May 3, 2005 2:25:00 AM)
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Alex,
Well, there's movement and then there's movement. Not all active movement is designed ideally to maintain mobility and tissue length, and choreographing movement for another carries risks any ballet dancer will be glad to tell you about.
Once we're born movement emerges naturally and efficiently, and by that I mean the movements that reduce the mechanical deformation that accumulates as we live our lives. Without question, the nervous system contains the tissue most likely to be bothered first by tension or compression and we know (or, at least should know) that ideomotor (go ahead and Google it) expression is designed to resolve that. No less an authority than Patrick Wall points out that we can be trained to withold that correction. Trying to replace instinct with choreography is what makes the connection between stretching and pain relief so tenuous. We know it can help but are often disappointed. We get neuromudulation, briefly, but no enduring correction.
When I determine that the connective tissue is the problem I'm confident that directed, accurate and prolonged stretching will help. When the restriction lies in nervous mobility or currently available length I let the patient resolve this naturally (ideomotorically).
Makes sense to me.
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