Trunk Flexibility Test #3: Seated forward bend

A tight upper or lower back limits your range of motion. To do this test stretch, follow these steps:
1. Sit on a chair with your feet flat on the floor.

2. Inhale and as you exhale round forward a far as you comfortably can, bending at your hips.

3. Make a note at what place on the clock face the back of your head points to.
• 1:00 is tight.
• 2:00 is healthy range of motion.
• 3:00 is very flexible.

Trunk Flexibility Test #2: Standing side bend

To do this test stretch, follow these steps:
1. Stand with your feet hip-width apart and your back straight, abdominals lifted, and your shoulders down.

2. Place your right hand overhead and your left arm to your side.

3. Inhale and as you exhale bend to the left side, reaching the fingers on your left hand down the side of your leg
Try to keep your shoulders and hips facing the front, avoiding even the slightest rotation in the spine.

4. Make a note on the Flexibility Self-Evaluation Worksheet at what place on the clock face the top of your head points to.
• 1:00 is tight
• 2:00 is healthy range of motion
• 3:00 is very flexible

5. Repeat this stretch on your other side (to stretch the left side).
• 11:00 is tight
• 10:00 is healthy range of motion
• 9:00 is very flexible

Trunk Flexibility Test #1: Seated rotation

To do this test stretch, follow these steps:
1. Sit up tall in a chair with your back straight, your abdominals lifted, and your shoulders down.

2. Place your left arm on the outside of your right thigh and your right hand on the back seat of your chair.
This position helps you turn your upper body at the waist in the next step.

3. Inhale and as you exhale twist at your waist as if you were trying to look behind you.
Remember to keep both shoulders down and to look out in front of you, not at the floor.

4. Make a note on what place on the clock your chest faces.
• 1:00 is tight.
• 2:00 is a healthy range of motion.
• 3:00 is very flexible.

5. Repeat this stretch by rotating to your left side and record the results.
• 11:00 is tight.
• 10:00 is a healthy range of motion.
• 9:00 is very flexible.

Chest Flexibility Test

To test the flexibility of your chest, follow these steps:

• Stand up tall with your back straight, your abdominals lifted, your shoulders down, and your arms at your sides.
• Inhale and bring your arms straight out in front of you at chest height.
• Exhale and open your arms to the side (palms facing forward) as far as you can without arching your back.
• Keep your shoulder blades down and stable.
• Make a note on your worksheet at what place on the clock your hands point.
• • 10:00 and 2:00 are tight.
• • 9:00 and 3:00 are a healthy range of motion.
• • 8:00 and 4:00 are very flexible.

Shoulders Flexibility Test

This simple movement can tell you a lot about the range of motion in your shoulders. To do this test stretch, follow these steps:

• Stand up tall with your back straight, your abdominals lifted, your shoulders down, and your arms to your side.
• Inhale and as you exhale lift your right arm straight forward, moving it as far overhead as you can. Remember to keep your shoulders down and don’t let your back arch. Stop moving if you feel pain in your shoulder. Make a note on your Flexibility Self-Evaluation Worksheet at what place on the clock face your hand points.
• 10:00 is tight.
• 12:00 is a healthy range of motion.
• 1:00 is very flexible.
• Repeat this stretch with your left arm and mark your results on the worksheet.
• 2:00 is tight.
• 12:00 is a healthy range of motion.
• 11:00 is very flexible.

Neck flexibility test

The chin-to-chest neck stretch gives you an idea of how tight the muscles are in your neck.
To test the muscles in this area, stretch following the steps below:

1. Sit up tall in a chair with your back straight, arms at your sides, and your shoulders down. Don’t round your back forward.
2. Inhale and as you exhale drop your chin down toward your chest.
3. Make a note on your Flexibility Self-Evaluation Worksheet at what place on the clock face the top of your head points. Imagine that the clock face is centered on the outside of your shoulder.

• 1:00 is tight.
• 2:00 is a healthy range of motion.
• 3:00 is very flexible.

Lateral head tilt

The lateral head tilt stretches the muscles that run along the sides of your neck: anterior, middle, and posterior scalenes. These muscles attach to the upper rib cage, so to get an effective stretch, you have to anchor your shoulder blades down as you tilt your head to the side.
To do this stretch, follow these steps:

1. Inhale as you lift your shoulders up to your ears with your arms straight down at your sides.
2. Exhale and lower your shoulders and anchor your shoulder blades in place to provide a firm foundation for the stretch.
3. Tilt your head to the left side, moving your left ear toward your left shoulder, being very careful not to lift your right shoulder.
4. Imagine that you’re holding a very heavy book in your hand as you tilt your head to the opposite side. This thought may help you keep your right shoulder down and allow you to feel the stretch more.
5. Hold the stretch for two or three deep breaths and then lift your head back to center.
6. Inhale as you lift your shoulders again; exhale as you lower your shoulders.
7. Repeat the stretch on the right side.

A few do’s and don’ts for this stretch:

• Do be aware of your muscles in your upper back holding your shoulder down.
• Do breathe as you hold the stretch.
• Do sit or stand up tall as you hold the stretch.
• Don’t tilt from your waist.
• Don’t let your opposite shoulder lift as you tilt your head.

What a Pain in the Neck! Stretches to Keep Your Head Held High

For most people, the neck is a lightning rod for stress. Traffic, job issues, cranky children —it’s amazing that the tension created by frustrations such as these are stored in that tiny little area above your shoulders and below your head. The movement of the head and neck is very complex and involves many muscles working together. To keep it simple, focus on four of those muscles: Upper trapezius (truh-pee-zee-uhs), sternocleidomastoid (stur-nohklahy-duh-mas-toid), scalenes (skey-leens), and levator scapula (li-vey-ter skap-yuh-luh).

These are the muscles that, when not taken care of, literally become a pain in the neck. Regularly stretching the muscles of your neck can reduce pain and tightness that if left unchecked can lead to headaches, chronic stiffness, limited range of motion, and even carpal tunnel syndrome. The stretches in this section may even prevent pain altogether.

Introduction

Starting at the top is a good way to begin your focus for stretching the upper body because most people (including me) hold a lot of tension in the upper body. After all, the upper body is primarily made up of the neck, shoulders, and upper back. And what a powerful combination!

My dance teacher used to tell me to keep my shoulders down — I loved to bring them up around my ears whenever I got stressed. Those good old shoulders would float upward leaving me with one heck of a neckache and a tight, pinched feeling between my shoulder blades. Many people have a habit of tensing their upper body when they get stressed out, which in turn, makes the muscles in the lower body overcompensate and work harder than they really need to (leading to a backache!). And that’s why this section is so important.

Putting Your Legs Where Your Head Is . . . Not: The Flexibility Self-Test

Performing a stretch that involves more than one muscle group makes it difficult to determine which muscle is tight or which ones cause limited range of motion. For example, you may have heard of the “sit and reach” test — where you sit on the floor with your legs straight out in front of you, and you bend forward while someone measures with a ruler how far you can reach toward your toes (you may have done this test in high school; it’s a popular test on Fitness Day).

Even though this test is common for flexibility, I’m not a big fan of it because it gives you very little information — it tells you if your muscles are tight or not, but it doesn’t tell you which muscles; is it your lower back, your hamstrings, or your calves that are tight? Who knows?

So my test is different. My stretch test isolates individual muscles to give you the most useful information possible to design your own customized stretching program. At first, the following sections of stretches may seem like a lot, but unfortunately there’s no such thing as just a few moves to determine flexibility.

After you completed the self-test, you know exactly what muscles in your body need the most attention. At that point, you can head to the chapter in this book that contains specific stretches for the areas you want to work and then choose the exercise(s) that feels most comfortable for your body.

Also, you may notice that most of the stretches test both the right and left sides of your body. It’s not uncommon to have one side more flexible than the other, which creates an imbalance, but it’s important to try to get both sides of your body equal in flexibility for symmetry, balance, and injury prevention, and this test helps you achieve that goal.

Before you start, I want to give you a few pointers:

• You get better results if you warm up before you attempt these tests. I recommend doing the same warm-up routine every time you do this stretch test — that way you get more consistent and accurate results.
• When you retest to check your progress, make sure that you always test in similar situations: time of day, amount of warm-up, workout schedule, and so on. As you perform the stretch, imagine a large clock around you with the center of the clock pinned to the axis of the stretch. For instance, when standing up and twisting, the clock would be on the ground, directly beneath the centerline of your body — the axis around which you are stretching. Midnight would be looking straight ahead. If you’re sitting on the ground leaning forward, the clock would be centered on your hip, the axis of your stretch. Midnight would be when you’re sitting up straight.
• Because this is only an assessment, not an attempt to increase your range of motion, don’t hold the stretches for an extended period of time. Just get into the correct position, inhale deeply and as you exhale make a note of your position as it corresponds to the hands on a clock.

Let the testing begin!

Testing Yourself Before (and While, and After) You Go Gumby-Like

The very best motivation to stick with an exercise program is seeing results, which is why I’ve developed the flexibility self-test I include in the next section. The test helps you accomplish two important goals:

• Indicates where you’re tight and where your imbalances may be so you know where to focus your stretching program: For example, by doing this self-test, you may discover that your quadriceps (muscles in the front of your thigh) are tight but you have a healthy range of motion in your hamstrings (muscles in the back of your thigh). Eventually this imbalance between these two opposing muscle groups may lead to an injury. Thanks to this self-test you now have the information to prevent that from happening by putting more time and effort into stretching your quadriceps and less on your hamstrings. Another common imbalance that leads to injury or postural problems is being tighter on one side of your body than the other. That’s why in this self-test you document your range of motion on both the right and left sides of your body. If you were to discover that your left shoulder has more range of motion than your right shoulder, you can put a little more time into stretching your right shoulder.
• Records and tracks your increases in flexibility over time: The only way to tell how far you’ve come is to know precisely where you started. And the only way to know how far you’ve gotten is to measure your progress regularly. Performing this self-test before you begin your flexibility training gives you a good idea of your initial flexibility level.

Measure yourself every six weeks to see how well you’re doing. And nothing breeds success like success. The more you find yourself improving, the more motivated you will be to keep up the good work!

Developing increased flexibility doesn’t happen overnight. You need to set realistic goals, and start with easy exercises before moving on to more advanced ones. Testing is for recording progress, not for competing. No two people are alike. Some people may see results more quickly and dramatically than others, but as long as you’re seeing improvement and enjoying yourself, you have a much better chance of making stretching a lifelong program.

The self-test takes about 20 minutes to complete, so make sure to have enough time to complete the test. As you test yourself more often and get more familiar with the stretches, the time will decrease. To get started, you need the following:

• Comfortable, loose fitting clothes
• Mat or carpeted floor — you need a space large enough to lie down comfortably
• Firm chair or exercise bench
• Stretching table or your bed
• Flexibility Evaluation Worksheet (included at the end of this chapter)
• Pen or pencil
• A towel or stretching strap

If you’re really dedicated to increasing your flexibility and you have made a commitment to stick with your stretching program, I suggest investing a few dollars and purchasing your own stretching strap — it will be well worth the money. Until then, just use a small bath towel or gym towel.

What you can’t change

To avoid any unrealistic expectations, remember that there are some physical factors that everyone has in common that simply can’t be changed. Yes, genetics do play a big part in individual flexibility, so I guess it’s okay to blame your family for this one . . . sorry mom!

• Your gender: Research indicates that, in general, women are more flexible than men. One reason could be because of bone structure because, for example, women usually have broader and shallower hips, which give them a potential for greater range of motion in the pelvic area.
• Your age: The aging process diminishes normal muscle function, including strength, endurance, and flexibility. Lost muscle mass is replaced with fat and collagen. Collagen is the main component in connective tissue and is highly inflexible. Although aging is, of course, inevitable, you can greatly slow down this process with your lifestyle choices, such as eating right, exercising, and stretching regularly!
• Elasticity of connective tissue in muscles or joints: Don’t think of flexibility in terms of your whole body; think in terms of the range of motion of each joint. And each of the joints in your body is made up of bones, muscles, and three types of connective tissue:
• Tendons: Tendons connect muscle to bone, and they drag the bone along when the muscle moves. Firm, strong tendons are a good thing because without them your muscles would be inefficient and unstable. You don’t focus on stretching the tendons in this book.
• Ligaments: Ligaments connect bone to bone (such as the bones in your knees and in your elbows) and play a large role in the stability of a joint and how much range of motion is possible in that joint. Because you don’t want wiggly knees or elbows, you don’t want to stretch your ligaments, either.
• Fascia: This tissue is the rest of the connective tissue in your body. You can find fascia under the skin, deep in your body surrounding your organs and within your muscles, holding the fibers of the muscle together in a compact, efficient bunch. As much as 30 percent of a muscle is fascia, but the precise percentage is determined solely by genetics, so the amount of fascia in your muscles can play a large role in how tight or flexible your muscles can be. If you were born with a high percentage of fascia in your muscles, chances are you will be less flexible overall.
• Your bone and joint structure limitations: You can thank Mom and Dad for your bone structure. Plain and simple, some people’s joints allow more range of motion than others. Get over it. Just like your childhood.

What you can change?

Flexibility is the ability of your body to move through the required range of motion to perform the activity at hand. But what happens if you don’t have flexibility in your body? You may be uncoordinated or tense, but here are some factors you can positively alter in your life to get the most out of your flexibility training:

• Muscle tension: If a muscle is tense or in a state of contraction then it can’t increase in flexibility. It’s important to be in a state of relaxation to get the full benefits of stretching _ Lack of coordination and body awareness: Lack of coordination can limit your ability to stretch the targeted muscle, therefore diminishing the effectiveness of the stretch. You have to pay attention to what’s happening to your muscles as you stretch and you have to be mindful of your movement, all the while continually improving your form.
• Lifestyle: Eat right, exercise regularly, and adhere to your flexibility training. Practice makes perfect, and that advice applies to becoming more flexible, too.
• Warming up: You need to make sure to warm up your muscles before you stretch. When a muscle and the connective tissue around that muscle are warm they stretch more easily and with less resistance — and you get more benefit from your stretching routines.
• Your attitude: You’ll never see your best results without a positive attitude. Of course that philosophy applies to more in life than just stretching, but focus on flexibility training for now.

About Flexibility Test

Some people are fast runners; some people are good singers; some people are flexible —and some people aren’t. But when it comes to flexibility, it’s really a question of degrees. While it’s important to have a healthy range of motion in all your muscles and joints just to live a balanced, healthy, injury-free life, being superflexible is really only necessary if you’re a professional dancer or gymnast (so don’t get discouraged if you can’t put your foot behind your head!). This chapter is designed to help you determine how flexible you really are and which areas of your body need the most attention so you can become as flexible as can be.

Before you can set a reasonable goal, you need to understand what’s achievable and what isn’t. Everyone can’t get a job with the Cirque du Soleil or do the splits, but not everyone should for the simple reason that not every body is designed to bend that way. Several factors determine your flexibility, and you can change some of those factors and some you can’t. But before you can work on making improvements in your flexible status, you have to be realistic. In the following sections, I present several areas of the body that you can improve on. Take a look at the factors in each category to see what differences you can make in your body with flexibility. And then check out the things that you can’t change.

Relaxing and Letting Go

One of the most important benefits of stretching is its ability to promote relaxation not only of your body but also of your mind and spirit. The slow, methodical movements in a good flexibility program provide gentle movements as you position your body for the next stretch, followed by periods of quiet stillness as you hold the stretch.

Concentrated focus on the muscles you’re stretching helps block out other stress-inducing thoughts (you know, those thoughts of your schedule, your finances, your kids, and so on). In this way, stretching can not only lengthen your muscles but also expand your mental horizon.
When you stretch, keep the following in mind:

• You should feel slight tension in the muscle that you intend to stretch. This tension should definitely not cross the line into pain or discomfort.
• You should feel a stretch only in the intended muscle, never in a joint. Pain in your joints signals irritation in the joint, so you definitely want to let up if that happens.
• Your body should be in a position that’s relaxed and totally tension free. If your body feels awkward or tense, modify the stretch, or use a prop such as a strap or block (covered earlier in this chapter) so you can focus on the intended muscle.
• Stretching should be a positive experience, not a form of self-torture. Throughout this blog I give you several different stretches for each muscle group. If one doesn’t seem to fit your body, try one that feels more comfortable.

The Art of Breathing Correctly

Believe it or not, you breathe in and out more than 20,000 times a day, and yet, most of the time you do it incorrectly. I can hear you asking, “How is it possible to breathe wrong? Air goes in; air goes out. How can something so simple be any more complicated?” Well, due to poor posture or lack of body awareness, you end up using the wrong muscles to breathe.

The end result is shallow, ineffective breathing that robs you of all the full benefits of your breath. Poor posture — with a rounded back, dropped shoulders, and a forward head —reduces the ability of the diaphragm to contract and the ribs to expand to their full potential. The lung itself has no muscles, so it’s totally dependent on the muscles around it to create the respiratory process of inhaling and exhaling.

This can happen two ways: by using the muscles that lift and lower the ribcage or by using the muscles of the diaphragm. Unfortunately, most people use the shoulder and chest muscles to facilitate the respiratory process of inhaling and exhaling. Although these muscles are large and powerful, breathing isn’t really what they were designed for. Instead, the primary location of the movement of respiration should be the diaphragm, which only has one function: breathing.
Here are some healthy breathing tips

• Inhale through your nose, filling your chest with air and letting your belly expand. This technique allows your nose to filter and warm the air before your body uses it. _ Make sure that your shoulders stay relaxed and don’t raise up around your ears when you’re breathing.
• Exhale through your mouth, consciously using your deep abdominal muscles and diaphragm to push the air out (belly will deflate). Just remember, to get all these wonderful benefits, you need to breathe the way your body was designed — from your core.

Positioning your pelvis

The area of the pelvis is the main hinge between the torso and the lower body, so correct positioning of the pelvis is crucial for lower body stretches involving the hips, thighs, and buttocks. Because these large muscles are all attached in one way or another to the pelvis, incorrect positioning of the pelvis can cause these lower body stretches to be inefficient or even actually counterproductive.

To find the proper pelvic position that you should maintain while you’re stretching, try standing in front of a mirror and turning sideways. Stand up tall so your body is in a straight line from head to toe. This position is the correct position you want to have in your pelvis.
You don’t want to do the following:

• Tilt your pelvis forward — described as “tucking your pelvis under”
• Arch your back and let your buttocks stick out

The neutral spine

Throughout this book I remind you to find or maintain neutral spine. You may be wondering what the heck that means but just remember you have a natural curve in your back when you relax. So I’m making sure that you don’t exaggerate or minimize the way your spine is naturally shaped.
Your spine has four natural curves:

1. The cervical (the curve in your neck)
2. The thoracic (the slightly rounded shape in your upper back)
3. The lumbar (the sway of your lower back)
4. The sacrum (the tilt of your pelvic region)

In flexibility training, neutral spine has three positions: lying on your back, sitting, and standing. Start each stretch in neutral spine because incorrect spinal position not only diminishes the effectiveness of the stretch but also promotes muscular imbalance and bad posture. Every time you start in correct alignment you retrain your muscles to properly support your spine.
Although exercising is excellent therapy for your spine, many people make simple but crucial mistakes in the position of their spine while exercising. These mistakes can place a great deal of stress on the spine. Some of the most common are

• Decreasing the curve in the lower back by “tucking” the pelvis under
• Excessively arching the back by tilting the pelvis backward
• Exaggerating the thoracic curve by rounding the shoulders forward and tightening the shoulder muscles
• Lifting and opening the rib cage while reaching overhead
• Forgetting that the neck is actually part of your spine
• Letting the chin drop down or the head jut forward

Maintaining Proper Body Alignment

Proper body alignment is your guarantee that you’re getting the most out of your stretches. Why? Because when you maintain proper body alignment — back straight, shoulders down, chest lifted, abs tight — you optimize the mechanics of your body so your stretches are properly anchored and the muscle you’re focusing on is fully lengthened. You also won’t unintentionally put stress and strain on other parts of your body, which can be counterproductive to what you’re trying to achieve.

Pay attention to what every part of your body is doing. Several studies suggest that a relationship exists between flexibility and posture. Researchers have found that imbalances in muscular development or tension can contribute to poor posture. For example, tight hamstrings can cause the pelvis to tilt up unnaturally, which can reduce the lumbar curve, exaggerate the thoracic curve, and possibly cause low back pain.

This section explains how stretching can have a positive effect on posture and how proper posture can have a positive effect on stretching. You may notice that one side of your body is more flexible than the other. This imbalance is very common, so don’t worry about it — and be sure to not go easy on the side that is less flexible. Really focus and try to increase your range of motion until both sides are even.

Breath and Limitation

Remember to breathe
You may think that I am silly for telling you to breathe, but trust me; during a stretch (especially a hard one) you focus so hard that you forget to breathe and you tend to hold your breath instead. The only way to stretch a muscle fully is to relax and practice slow, rhythmic breathing. To simplify things, try to remember to exhale so your body automatically inhales. Don’t make it any more complicated than that for right now.

Know your limits
Stretching can help you understand both your possibilities and your limits. Stretching is supposed to be energizing and relaxing, not painful. Never do anything that hurts! You may not believe it right now, but flexibility training should not be painful. In fact, if you feel pain of any kind, let up on the stretch immediately.
Not everyone is able to do the perfect splits, and you don’t need to. Stretching isn’t a competition; it’s about determining your current level of flexibility, whatever that may be, and improving on that foundation. Different people begin with different foundations. What matters most is that you’re able to make yourself more flexible than you were. This increased flexibility can help improve your performance in your favorite sports and activities, and, by making movement more fluid, easy, and graceful, help enhance the overall quality of your life.

Progress through the stretch

I like to think of each stretch progressing through three different stages:

1. Comfort zone: The first 10 to 15 seconds This term describes the initial period of the stretch where you find a comfortable position, give yourself a body check, and make sure your alignment is good. You should also feel a mild tension in the muscle group that you’re stretching.
2. Relaxation zone: The next 5 to 15 seconds This period in the stretch focuses on your breathing and relaxation — letting stress and tension melt away from both your body and mind. You may feel the stretch deepen slightly.
3. Deep stretch zone: The last 5 to 10 seconds You’ve now held the stretch for 20 to 30 seconds. Your body is relaxed, and you know that you’re in correct position because you feel a slight tension precisely in the intended area. Remember you want to feel slight discomfort, not pain!

All the stretches in this blog should be approached in the progressive fashion above. Never try to begin a stretch fully extended. Take your time and slowly and gradually move deeper with each breath, allowing the muscle to relax and giving your body the time to produce the correct neuromuscular response.