Hamstring Flexibility Article Discussion

[Antony Stanley-Clarke]

I have just read this article http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58cdb802e4b0e0d348b34421 and am completely dumbfounded as to the grounding of this perspective. Especially with what the community here are endeavouring to achieve. I am not a therapist or anatomical specialist but i know how my body feels. Nearly 12 months in since starting this journey with GB and i have rolled back about 3 years of feeling-age in my body. Less pain and more agile. How can the article's author have really arrived at this conclusion? I would really like to hear from some experienced members of the community about this.

[Everett Carroll]

1 hour ago, Antony Stanley-Clarke said:

I am not a therapist or anatomical specialist

Neither is the author of that article. People can arrive at all sorts of conclusions; it doesn't mean they are backed by science or results. You feel excellent after a year of GB because Coach Sommer's job for the last 40+ was producing world-class results. Keep training your mobility and strength, Antony, and you will continue to experience incredible results!

[Antony Stanley-Clarke]

9 hours ago, Everett Carroll said:

Neither is the author of that article. People can arrive at all sorts of conclusions; it doesn't mean they are backed by science or results. You feel excellent after a year of GB because Coach Sommer's job for the last 40+ was producing world-class results. Keep training your mobility and strength, Antony, and you will continue to experience incredible results!

Thanks Everett. I don't doubt Coach Sommer's approach. His 40+ years of experience in gymnastics is exactly why i am here. I was interested from a more scientific perspective of stretching to understand this view and to understand the approach of Coach Sommer.

[Wouter Molenaar]

As a physiotherapist I think the author is part right in that just stretching the hamstrings doesn't solve your back problem or help you run quicker. The GB program combines hamstringsstretches as part of a program, but this program also has excersizes to strenghten the core and backmuscles. Combined it's good. The goal of the hamstringsstretching is different.

I see a lot of people who start stretching hamstrings as crazy and expect to run a faster 10K afterwards, they usually end up with a proximal tendinopathy of the hamstrings.

Education, program and goal is key here.

[Jonas Winback]

Long rant incoming. TL:DR version: stretching rocks!  (more studies need to be done on dynamic stretching though, but that's only a matter of time).

I think they key point in that article is ” Pulling on any muscle in a static stretch will not make a muscle longer but might damage the tendons and ligaments that keep joints stable during movement.”. While that might be true in some cases, depending on the intensity and force of the stretch, it’s not really what GB is focus on anyway. Here it’s more about building up active mobility through strengthening the stretched tissue (i.e. muscles, tendons, ligaments) in a given range of motion.

In my opinion (also as physiotherapist), I think this is a very important distinction, even in cases of hypermobile people, as opposed to what the article argues. There are generally “hypermobile” people, and there are people with connetive tissue syndromes like Ehlers-Danlos who are pathologically hypermobile, and then I’d say it’s even more important that they can develop strength in a great a range of motion as possible to become more stable and prevent injuries. Speaking of that diagnosis, they usually have a lot of muscular trigger points and pain because (but not solely due to) that.

To contribute a little bit with research on the area, to contradict this article (although the focus of the two articles are not exactly the same): “Hasebe K1, Okubo Y, Kaneoka K, Takada K, Suzuki D, Sairyo K. The effect of dynamic stretching on hamstrings flexibility with respect to the spino-pelvic rhythm. J Med Invest. 2016;63(1-2):85-90.

Some excerpts from the background:

“Tight hamstrings correlate strongly with low back pain. Esola et al. reported athat spinopelvic rhythm (lumbar motion/pelvic motion) contributes to low back pain, and that the spino-pelvic rhythm is disturbed by tight hamstrings.”

“Tight hamstrings can restrict hip movement, thereby increasing lumbar spine motion and causing back pain  due to their influence on spino-pelvic rhythm during forward bending”

 “Recently, Hasebe et al measured spino-pelvic rhythm in healthy subjects with various grades of hamstrings tightness and found increase pelvic motion in subjecst with flexible hamstrings than in those with tight hamstrings. They also stated that improving hamstrings flexibility is important for reducing lumbar loading during activities in daily life”

And from the study itself:

“Each subject performed 20 repetitions of knee extension every second for 5 sets, with 1-min rest intervals between the sets, 3 days per week for 6 weeks.”

“Previous studies investigating the spino-pelvic rhythm after hamstrings stretching had mainly used static stretching.

“The aim of this study is to clarify the influence of dynamic stretching of hamstrings on spinopelvic rhythm”.

From the discussion:

“Tightness in the hamstrings can restrict pelvic forward movement, thereby increasing compensatory lumbar flexion. The result of our study showed that the dynamic stretching invetervention for hamstring muscles can possibly improve pelvic mobility in the late phase of trunk forward bending (phase III and IV), leading to a reduction in compensatory lumbar flexion movement. It is therefore logical that overcoming hamstrings tightness and improving flexibility will ensure greater mobility of the pelvis, leading to reduced lumbar motion and mechanical loading during trunk motion. These data indicate that flexible hamstrings are beneficial for preventing low back pain by reducing lumbar loading”

The SLR, finger-floor-distance and spinopelvic rhythm were measured with a motion that I’m sure looks pretty familiar to everybody here:

It would’ve been interesting to see the measurement test (i.e. “Jefferson curls”) to be the actual intervention as well, but at least they had a dynamic stretching protocol:

A follow-up study on this will hopefully be linked more closely to things like lumbar back pain (since these were all healthy subjects).

[Alexander Egebak]

Very narrow-sighted article.

It is very true that the CNS controls muscle tension. But the author makes conclusions on those grounds that are neither scientific nor logical.

The author mentions the word "functional" and hints towards that it is functional to have the extensor muscles keep the back upright (who would disagree?!) and speaks of it being normal not to be able to reach your toes when you have a "functional" back. So functional apparently means having tight hamstrings but a "working" back. Ha!

Is it a myth that hamstring flexibility indicates good health? I can argue for and against that but I see no real evidence for his postulation.

And only hypermobile people are flexible in their hamstrings. Right. So I became hypermobile over the course of a few years (I started 10 cm off the ground)? Hypermobility is far more than just being flexible; it is genetics (like ED as someone mentioned). Therefore, hypermobility cannot be tested solely with range of motion tests - that would only be tests for flexibility, not hypermobility.

Next we see how the author thinks that flexibility contradicts strength because he cannot see how one can be both strong and flexible. Look at a hanging leg raise. Now reconsider. The author also claims that flexibility lasts no longer than 20 minutes. Let us invite him over and let him have a look us very hypermobile, unfunctional and asymptomatic adults. The author is definitively not experienced with stretching if he cannot produce long term flexibility gains.

I would also like to see studies which show that stretches compromises joint stability as claimed. Considering how little he knows of stretching he might be able to come up with a protocol which is harmful for joint stability.

I seriously doubt how stretching the hamstrings has any effect on sacral nutation as well as general posture. As long as your muscles are strong as well as flexible there should be no problems at all. Due to the fact that ligaments contain little elastin it takes an acute trauma to cause any serious elongation of the tissues (especially if you are an adult). And the author seems to forget that tension arises in the hamstrings as a nervous reaction to threat long before the ligaments are being stretch to even a moderate degree; unless you are VERY flexible (in which case you will hit end-field).

To his last point: the body is global; not made of parts. The title is fine; the wording is complete bullshit. There is no correlation between pain and posture. You will not cause pain from being in a less ideal posture. Everyone injuries their spine at some point but that is due to normal aging; the majority of spinal injuries are not even felt or noticed, in fact disc degeneration happens for about 37% in their 20's, disc bulges happen to 30% in the same age group and disc protrusion happens to 29%. And they do NOT experience any pain (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25430861).

Bullshit article.

[Mark Koch]

Antony, great points.  Although I'm 58 and literally only one week into this journey, I'm feeling an ease of movement and better alignment that I have in years.   I also think tight hamstrings are the reason I occasionally get low back spasm from deadlifting and understand whatever flexibility I though I had was really the result of bent knees.  As a strength guy who takes an occasional yoga class, I would observe that there are certain yoga junkies who just do yoga and really push the flexibility limits the same way a lifter likes to put plates on the bar.

Very pleased with Coach Summers expertise and its  nice to begin a program with total confidence in the guidance.

Now regarding the Huff Po in general - slightly off topic, but I offer the observation that its a free publication, contributors to the HP are unpaid bloggers, often with unusual new age type credentials,  and there is little editorial review.  In short- you get what you pay for

[Suzanna McGee]

Guys, and ladies… this is a great article, answer/rebuttal on that crazy Huffington post article. It's a great read. Enjoy:

http://www.greglehman.ca/blog/2017/3/20/if-you-want-to-stretch-your-hamstrings-please-continue-to-do-so