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 People in the East have been practicing yoga, tai chi and other forms of meditation and elongation for many centuries. You may be one of the thousands of Americans who have been into yoga for a decade or more, but, generally, the collective Western fitness psyche has been focused on strength and endurance, and especially on burning calories. Pilates Gets Past the Machine We used to practice Pilates way back in the '70s in New York. Pilates came into widespread popularity over the past five years, but 2008 is the year that Mat Pilates swept the big health clubs and private studios of America.You no longer need to go one-on-one with an instructor on the original Pilates machine. You can now practice all the stretch of Pilates working on a mat. And recently, it's become all the rage. Elongate with a Stability Ball The Exercise Ball or Stability Ball is a staple at most health clubs and gyms these days, but this year it seemed that many of us decided we need an inflatable stretch ball in our homes as well. Thera-Band, as one example, makes a series of different sized balls (for people of different heights) that are used to improve balance, coordination, and core strength. The genius of the Stability Ball is that, while you are working on all those goals, you're elongating your lower and middle back, stretching the ham strings and buttocks, and easing open the fasciae throughout the shoulder, hip, knee, and calf areas. Loosen Up with a Foam Roller Our particular favorite stretch tool here at BravaBody is the Styrofoam Cylinder or Foam Roller. It takes the stretch possible with the Stability Ball to the nth degree. The cylinder used to be deployed strictly at physical therapists' offices, but this year individuals are catching on to working on their own cylinder at home. Picture this cylinder - made of hard-packed Styrofoam - as a giant rolling pin. Instead of having a chef roll the pin over your body, you roll your own body over the pin, slowly letting go and breathing deeply as you roll. To roll your back, you position yourself above your cylinder and let your sit bones rest on top of the roller. Balancing yourself with your hands on the floor, you roll your body from the sit bones to the middle back, letting your lower back release as the hard-packed Styrofoam rolls over the muscles, flattening them out, and helping them to let go and loosen. If you Google Foam Roller or Styrofoam Cylinder, you'll find many physical therapy sites that offer these rollers.They come in three different densities. We suggest you start with the least dense until you get used to allowing your body parts to relax as they roll, especially the hips, as they tend to feel discomfort as they move along the hard-packed roller. As far as we're concerned, the Foam Roller is a key, even crucial, element of your home gym. Even before you invest in a treadmill or elliptical machine, before you get a few sets of dumbbells, get yourself a Foam Roller and start rolling! Follow the Pros Let's use the professional athlete as the evolving metaphor for the public. Sure, there have been eccentric cases from the past, such as Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver star Lynn Swann taking ballet lessons back in the ‘70s, but until very recently world-class athletes have dedicated themselves to strength, speed, and endurance, paying precious little attention to keeping their muscles, joints, tendons, and ligaments long and supple. Today, even the most macho of baseball pitchers have learned that power is directly increased with flex. Dara Torres is the ultimate poster girl for the professional athlete who believes The Stretch is as crucial to her success; the fast-twitch fibers are the basis of her fast start and quickness in the pool. The video footage of her preparing for the Beijing Olympics was water cooler fodder for millions of Americans who don't know much about world-class swimming. Among her large entourage of nutritionists, masseurs, etc, she had two guys who were officially dubbed her "stretchers." Before and after every workout, Dara would lie in the supine position on the pool deck and these two stretchers of hers would pull her limbs in various directions to gently open the fasciae in her shoulder joints, to gingerly get the groin areas to relax and let go, and to coax the lower back into finding a greater range of motion. The footage looked quite like a Thai massage, whereby the masseur stands above you and manipulates your limbs left and right, up and down. But Dara's stretchers were specifically targeting the fasciae, the thin sheet of tissue that enwraps the muscles and gets taut when we work those muscles. And when the fasciae are taut, it limits the joints and the muscles at their joint attachments from range of motion. If you've ever been Rolfed, you know that the process of Rolfing is to render the fasciae more malleable with the intention of restoring mobility to the joints of the entire body and elongating all the muscles of the body. Well, just as the athlete has evolved in her/his training philosophy over recent decades, and come to understand how performance of power and speed is enhanced with looser muscle fiber and more flexible joints, the public has also come to believe that daily health and overall fitness are greatly improved with elongation, beyond just muscular strength and cardiovascular endurance. As a matter of fact, we believe that a full third of the time you spend on your body (cardio a third, strength a third) should be in elongation. Get with THE STRETCH! Diana Nyad and Bonnie Stoll are the founders of BravaBody.com, an online |
