What cause a muscle to feel tight? Should I stretch?
I get asked almost daily about muscle tightness or stretching. Stretching has a certain place in our culture that’s up there with juice cleanses as a supposed elixir of life. Something tight, or hurting? Stretch it out! Need a morning routine, warm up routine, or cool down routine? Let’s throw in some stretching. Have a new injury? Must be from some tight muscles. Right?
Well… maybe. As always, the truth is complicated. The sensation of muscle tightness, or needing to stretch a muscle, is actually a complex neurological phenomenon.
Low Intensity Training and the Maximal Aerobic Function Test: Measuring Aerobic Fitness and Nervous System Function
Testing strength standards is fairly straightforward: can you lift a certain weight for a certain number of reps, or not?
However, measuring cardiovascular and aerobic function can be more complex. Of course, there's a straightforward race or time trial -- how fast can you go over a certain distance -- but this does not consider different cardiovascular energy systems, or the role of mental fortitude, for example.
Even more complex is measuring nervous system function. Do you live and work primarily in a sympathetic state (more hype, more stress, faster-paced sprint efforts), or a parasympathetic state (resting and digesting, slower aerobic efforts)? This is important to consider as it can be a window in both the effects of our training, and how we are coping with all of the other stresses present in our lives.
Introducing EVOLVE Performance Training
“Do what you love, for life.”
Since the beginning, our goal at EVOLVE Flagstaff is to help you do what you love, for life. We want to help you feel and look great, to overcome injuries, prevent chronic disease, and live your life to the fullest.
To better fulfill that mission, we are incredibly excited to announce that EVOLVE Flagstaff will be expanding to a larger space in downtown Flagstaff. We’ll be moving from our current 350 square foot office to a 2,400 square foot clinic and training space. This move will provide the following dedicated private offices for our Registered Dietitian and Physical Therapist, allowing for more available treatment times and less distraction. We’ll also have a state of the art strength and conditioning equipment with ample space to train.
What’s most exciting about this move is that we will launching a Performance Training Program that we’ve beta tested over the past year to address all of the most common problems we see people encountering while pursuing an active lifestyle.