If you’re like most of my patients, you don’t stretch before or after your exercise-walks or hikes …and for some reason you feel guilty about it when asked.
There are a lot of mixed ideas about stretching and I’m not saying you should necessarily do it, but if you feel pain at any point during or after walking, it’s possible that you might benefit from a cool-down stretch of some sort.
Stretching in general is a highly debatable topic but because of all the nuances that can co-exist with pain related to walking, whether or not to stretch is not a clear cut answer. In this post, I’m addressing a few generalities but to really know when, what and how (or if) you should stretch, please consult someone who can talk to you about your individual needs from a physical medicine standpoint.
When you stretch, matters.
The question I get a lot is: “Should I stretch before or after walking (or exercising)?”
My personal preference from experience with my own body is when things feel warmed up — after exercise and before prolonged inactivity. That can be the most effective at creating greater ease in the body.
For example if you’re driving even just 30 minutes to the park or a hiking trail, that means after your walk when you’re all warmed up, you’re looking at 30 minutes of inactivity — sitting still on your way back home. In this case, your body might enjoy a gentle stretch before getting back in the car.
Maybe you’re taking a break from your desk or computer during the work day by squeezing in a quick jaunt around the neighborhood. That means you’re looking at the second half of a day sitting down again or standing still (if you have a standing work station), after your walk. In this case you also should experiment with some gentle stretching before stillness sets in again.
In my opinion (and based on current research[1]), stretching is not a good warm-up activity. Doing your activity, whether that’s walking or working out or playing a game and just starting slowly, is the best warm-up.
What you’re stretching, matters.
Most of the time, any kind of stretching I hear about is, in my opinion, excessive and usually being done to the “wrong” muscle groups. We humans seem to want to stretch things that feel tight and you are probably thinking: “Well, yeah — duh! Doesn’t that make sense?”
The point of stretching is to create length in something that we think is too short. The problem is that what feels tight is often not in fact short. What I see repeatedly in practice is that our sensation of tightness occurs in areas that are actually over-lengthened and underdeveloped or weak. So, when we introduce a stretch to a structure that is already weak and long, we’re actually adding insult to injury. This is why relief from stretching is often only temporary and it seems like we have to keep doing it.
The key is to use stretching to stay limber before things hurt or feel tight.
How you stretch, matters.
There are two ways to stretch: passively or actively. Early in my career I, like many practitioners, made the mistake of promoting too much passive stretching. Passive stretch has its place but active stretching is much safer and can create lasting change.
What’s the difference?
Passive stretch: Imagine you’re lying down on your back and someone else lifts your leg and pushes it up towards your head and then tells you to relax. That’s passive. You’re not doing anything except forcing a position and waiting for the short tissues of the body to surrender.
Active stretch: Picture yourself in a lunge position for example, without holding on to anything for balance. Your muscles have to create and maintain this shape. Not only are you stretching — perhaps the back of your leg that’s behind you and maybe the calf muscle of the leg in front of you — but you’re also using active muscle effort to create this shape and the stretch. In this way, you teach your body and brain how to be in a new shape with equal parts length and engagement.
Ways to experiment with muscle engagement
Now that you know stretching is not everything it’s cracked up to be, I’d like you to play with the idea that when something feels tight, it might actually be weak — needing strength and activation. See what happens if you find a way to gently wake up the muscles in that tight-feeling area and work to strengthen instead of stretching.
Outer Thighs
One complaint I hear often is that of tightness on the outside of the legs or side of the hips. The area is referred to as the “IT Band” by many people which isn’t completely accurate but it doesn’t matter what you call it as long as you know we’re talking about the outer thigh.
When the outer thigh feels tight — instead of foam rolling the heck out of it (which technically amounts to passive stretching) try instead to work those outer thigh muscles. Give them something to do. Tire them out and then see how it feels. There’s something called the monster walk. Check out the video below if you want to give it a try.
Calves
This is the back of the lower leg from the ankle to the knee. It’s also an area that can get quite tight with walking. Sometimes blood flow and lymph drainage aren’t 100% which can add to the feeling of tightness in this area. This is an issue that muscle activation is excellent for. Muscles physically help to pump blood up out of the leg back to the heart for fresh oxygen.
What you might not expect is that better activation of your foot structures can be an important part of managing calf tightness (and knee pain — but that’s a topic for another day)!
Here is a video of two very simple foot and lower leg activities that I think everyone should try. It can be a good start to better lower leg muscle engagement whenever you spend time on your feet.
These are just two examples of ways to address “tightness” without stretching. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach and your body’s needs will change over time.
What’s always important is to stay curious and open to learning what your body wants based on the changing experience of being in it.
Next week I’ll give you 3 fun ways to walk “smarter” so that you don’t have to be so hard on yourself when making one or all of these 5 walking mistakes that were covered over the past 5 posts.
[1] Page P. Current concepts in muscle stretching for exercise and rehabilitation. Int J Sports Phys Ther. 2012;7(1):109-119.
As originally published on medium.com/@yalingliou on June 10th, 2022
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