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INTRODUCTION 0:10
Welcome to the fit and healthy Denver podcast where we discuss all things revolving around health, fitness and wellness in the amazing state of Colorado so you can get behind the scenes information from industry insiders, special events and more. Coming up is our host physical therapist and strength coach Dr. Jamie Beauvais. And here we go.
JAMIE 0:36
Stretching, mobility and recovery are all very important aspects of an athlete or for the average person after they’ve done a workout. I think each of these three aspects could be broken out into an individual podcast. However, I do think they are very intertwined. When you are talking about stretching, mobility and recovery. Many times it is, you know, how can I get to my next workout a little faster and a little bit more recovered and feel a little bit better? How can I work out harder, but I think if you do all three of these well, you can learn how to unlock your body to move better, workout more and harder and move pain free. So in this little mini so let’s go over some of the individual parts of each of these and what you need to know. So stretching. First question is why? Why should you stretch? There is some research out there that shows long term stretching, meaning consistent stretching every day over a long period of time. Can’t help a little bit with injury prevention. If you think about it, when are people typically injured when working out or when doing certain movements and it’s when their body doesn’t have the flexibility and they kind of go into a position that they’re not really ready for and because the body is not ready for it doesn’t know how to react and then injuries can happen. So if you’re more flexible, and then you use that range of motion, you are getting your body used to that and priming for that range of motion and you’re less likely to get injured. So the question then is when should I stretch, should I stretch before activity or should I stretch after and a lot of you may have heard that stretching before right before your activity can decrease your performance? And that’s true. However, most people that are quoting this may have only read the summary of the research and not read all the research. When this was studied. You do a static stretch and you hold it and then immediately you go into a powerful movement like a jump, broad jump, a snatch and lifting. So it’s like boom, you stretch and then right after you do your movement. So in all reality, what the research showed was when you stretch then you take some time to move around and you put some time in between that static stretching, it really didn’t make much of a difference. So in reality, the way people actually stretch is if they do that static stretch, then they do some dynamic warm ups and things like that really don’t make a difference. So there is a type of stretching called dynamic warm ups, which I think are extremely valuable. There’s FIFA plus 11. There’s one in rugby, there are these movements that you take your body through a specific type of motion. So you’re priming your brain for the motion you’re going to do in the activity. And you do that with movement. So it’s trying to get the joints and the muscles warm. And you’re trying to prime that brain for that movement. And by doing a movement and not necessarily a static hold. You’re getting those muscles warm. You’re getting them more blood flow. You’re getting them, you’re making them more pliable because now they’re warm. That’s what your muscle does. And you’re getting them used to that stretch sensation and getting the body used to that so very, very beneficial. With those dynamic warm ups. I think those are what you really want to do before your workout. Now after your workout the muscles are already warm. Now’s a great time for that static stretch. So you hold that stretch and you hold it. Now that those muscles are warm and more pliable, they’re actually more acceptable or they will accept that stretch and retain it a little bit better. So before workouts do those dynamic warm ups or movement based warm ups and after you are working out, do the static stretching and really get that long term effect. If you do that you can become more flexible over time. And you can also prime your brain. If you’re doing the dynamic hormones beforehand. You’re priming your brain for the movements and making not only yourself more athletic and you’ll have better workouts but less likely to get yourself injured. Now the key to that is making those dynamic warm ups specific to the movements you’re getting ready to do as possible. So another question with stretching. A lot of people feel tight all the time. Hip Flexors is a great example. Especially people that work from home or work behind a desk. I have tight hip flexors, I have tight hip flexors and probably seven out of 10 or eight out of 10 people feel like they have tight hip flexors. However, are they tight, or are they weak? And the reason I make that differentiation is they feel the same. So what’s going to happen with weak hip flexors is the body isn’t going to trust you to go into certain positions. So to prevent you from going into those positions that it thinks is dangerous or sorry, the brain that the brain thinks is dangerous. It will tighten those muscles up when I say tighten up. Think about flexing a muscle so it’s going to increase the tone. So once you increase the tone, it makes it harder to move into that position. And that makes it a little bit safer from injury. However, it feels just the same as muscle length. So this is a length versus a tone problem. So if you have a tone problem, stretching, it will help. So if you’re one of those people who have stretched and stretched and stretched and you’re not getting more flexible, you might start thinking about is it actually a strength problem? So in that case of the hip flexors I was telling you about earlier with somebody with weak hip flexors, if they’re stretching and it’s not working, the answer to the problem is actually getting stronger so that the brain trusts you to go into those positions. So in that case, you need to gain strength to gain flexibility. And many people don’t look at that. And that’s not just for the hip flexors. It’s really for any muscle, but that’s just a great example. And so after you have strengthened that then that flexibility will start to stick. Now another question is how do I get my flexibility to stick around and with that the answer I have we have a saying you have to gain the range before you train the range.
JAMIE 6:35
So what’s that mean? means first, you have to get that flexibility, but once you do, you have to train it or else it goes right back. And if you don’t train it, then let’s say you just make yourself more flexible. And now you have all this new range of motion that you’ve never worked in. And your body isn’t used to you may be making yourself a little bit more susceptible to injury. So gain the range and then train it with movements with strengthening you know, be safe with it but you have to learn to use that and control that new range of motion or else it will just go back but if you do learn to control it, it will stick Okay. Let’s move on to mobility, mobility. What is it? What’s the definition? I think the reason I wanted to find this in this is just my definition. But the reason I want to define it is I think flexibility and mobility get thrown together out there a lot on the internet and on social media and I think it’s hard sometimes to really know the difference. My definition of mobility, mobility is the range of motion that you can control. So that’s different from flexibility because I could maybe push your shoulder into a position that you know you can’t take it in so the flexibility is greater than the mobility. So mobility is the range of motion that you can control. So that’s very important. If you think about earlier when I was talking about stretching and gaining that new range of motion, you need to also gain the mobility in that new range of motion. And if you do, you can not only learn to control both ranges of motions, but then you can start getting stronger and you can start moving in ways that you couldn’t before. Just gaining flexibility won’t necessarily do that for you. But you need to gain that mobility. And then you can learn to move in those new movements as safely as possible. So with mobility, you also want to make it as specific as possible. So those mobility drills, lots of times this is where a little bit of the dynamic warm ups and things can move into mobility drills. So you’re moving into a position and then you’re moving out of it. Hopefully using those muscles again, priming the brain or the movements that you want to control and get better at. So that’s how you use mobility. But stretching will get you the range of motion mobility will help you to maintain it. All right, and now recovery. So here I’m talking about sports recovery, not necessarily injury recovery, but sports recovery or how you recover from a hard workout will determine not only how fast you get stronger, faster, have more endurance, but also will somewhat affect how likely you are to get injured as well. So recovery is that period after a hard workout where your body really learns to adapt to the stresses that were just put on it and get better and stronger and faster, etc. Super important. Most people have for the most part, you know, they work out really hard, but they don’t work hard on their recovery. So for most people, the part where they can really gain strength or gain quickness or whatever fastest is to focus on the recovery portion of the workouts and not necessarily the workout itself. Everybody’s pushing it hard in the workout but how many people are really pushing it hard and then the recovery.
JAMIE 9:54
So with this, you know, how do you recover from a workout? So let’s say after a workout, one of the best ways is to work out for just five minutes at about 60% Your heart rate Max, this is real light by the way. So it’s not a workout. It’s just keeping your body moving, pumping out lactic acid and all the other things that kind of build up in a workout. And so to figure this out, what’s your heart 60% of your heart rate Max is where you want to be. So take 225 minus your age and then multiply that by point six. This usually is about the amount where you’re just starting to sweat a little bit but it’s definitely not dripping. It’s just a little you’re just getting a little glow. That’s kind of a rough estimate for most people that will help you to recover from that day’s hard workout and feel better the next day. Now after you’ve had a series of hard workouts or you’ve had a really hard workout, let’s say you’re training for a marathon and you just did a 21 mile run on the weekend, you probably need to do a recovery workout after that. So again, this is that 60% Your heart rate Max and for about 25 minutes. This doesn’t have to be sports specific. In fact, it’s probably better if it’s not. So if you’re running and you just ran 21 miles you probably don’t want to choose running as your recovery workout. You could buy things like biking, swimming, maybe easier on your body and help you recover a little bit more. Mobility is something that is recently all the rage in the sports world for measuring these things. And it’s basically the idea of your heart rate. Let’s say somebody told you your heart rate beats 60 beats a minute. It does but that is not exactly one beat per second. There is some variability there. So maybe one is point eight and the next one is one point in a second and a half something like that. And what that is, it’s your sympathetic, parasympathetic or your fight or flight and your rest and digest systems fighting each other. And when the sympathetic fight or flight is in dominance, that heart rate variability will decrease because it’s really taking control of your body. And that’s a measure that you need to rest or you need to do a recovery workout. So there is technology out there, whoop, man’s W H O P is one of the best out there. But there are some free resources on the app store as well. And so really, this is technology based. So use one of those free resources and just just measure your heart rate variability. If it’s getting low, it’s time for a recovery workout or to do other things. Some other major factors are hydration. Sorry other major factors of recovery, how hydrated you are. The two biggest ones are sleep and nutrition. Are you sleeping well? Are you eating right? And so other ways to know if you may need a recovery workout. How’s your sleep? So if you’re sleeping poorly and that’s not normally your thing, it may be telling you that you need to do a recovery workout. How’s your mood? Are you having mood swings, especially if it’s more than normal? That also may tell you that you need a recovery workout or you don’t need to push it. Another really good measure is are you doing a workout and it just feels way harder than it should be? That’s probably a measure that you need a recovery workout.
JAMIE 13:10
Especially you know, and I think we’ve all had those where it’s like, jeez, I just don’t feel myself. I don’t feel like I can push it. That’s a sign that you probably need a recovery workout. As some of you may be feeling that and you’re like well, I haven’t really been pushing it that hard in the gym. And I feel like that. How is that? So you have to realize your body doesn’t really differentiate as far as mental stress and physical stress as far as the central nervous system goes. And so maybe you’re not pushing it that hard in the gym, but your mental stress is through the roof. And so you need to get on top of that or do a recovery workout. So you have to stay on top of the mental stress and the physical stress. And both of those will affect how much you need to recover. So if you think about all three of these major things that we talked about stretching, mobility and recovery. Hopefully you can see how they all play into this because your stretching is going to make the possibility of being more mobile. The better you move, the less stress it puts on your body and it helps with recovery or helps your need for recovery. And then, you know, physically maybe you don’t stress yourself if you are more flexible and more mobile. So if you do all these things, you make yourself able to work out harder to enjoy the workouts to enjoy the time in between the workouts, you know, improve your sleep, improve your mood, and also improve injuries. So one of the things that has been measured is his heart rate variability and when it goes down, injuries also increase. We also know that in athletes that sleep less that their injuries increase. So it is tied to sleep as well. So hopefully you can see how all of these blend in together. Let us know if you have any questions. Thanks for joining in. Give us a review and we will see you next time. All right. Thanks for joining. Bye.
OUTRO 15:10
Thank you for listening to the fit and healthy Denver podcast brought to you by kinetic train Denver. Physical therapy. If you know anybody that you think would benefit from listening to this podcast, please share it with them. And don’t forget to hit that subscribe button so you can enjoy all the great information we’re bringing you in the next episode
Unknown Speaker 15:40
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