Why should you stretch? I don’t know… Maybe you shouldn’t. But maybe you should! I can’t possibly tell you what you should do, because your body knows way more about itself, than I know about it 😉
Here’s a quick summary of the points made in Why Should You Stretch? (part 1) (give it a read if you haven’t yet):
- Stretching and flexibility seem to be the universal go-to solutions for pain and tightness.
- Sometimes, especially if you’re me, stretching makes things feel worse.
- Being more flexible doesn’t make you a better person.
- Most people (including me) could save their future-selves a lot of time and money and suffering by asking, “why is it tight??“, before scrolling through Instagram for fancy stretches (probably demonstrated by a very attractive-looking, half-naked person with thousands of followers and a free ebook)
After writing part one, the question I got stuck on was why do we silly humans stretch in the first place? This question took me to some interesting existential spaces which may not be useful for 80% of you. Whatever. For the other 20%…
…Why Do We Stretch?
Despite our incredible cortex, opposable thumbs, and abilities to think, reason, and create cool shit, at the base, we humans are wired just like any other animal- With massively over-riding instincts, beyond reason, for sex and survival.
So I got to wondering: Do animals stretch?
Apparently they do, and they do so involuntarily, typically accompanied by yawning in the transition from sleep to wakefulness.
When animals “stretch”, it is referred to as pandiculation, and, according to THIS serves as a way to:
“reset the central nervous system to the waking state after a period of sleep and prepare the animal to respond to environmental stimuli”…
and,
“to maintain the animal’s ability to express coordinated and integrated movement by regularly restoring and resetting the structural and functional equilibrium of the myofascial system...“
A fancy way of saying, “keep shit moving good, like it should”.
Now please enjoy these animal pandiculation videos:
And here is a very satisfying video of a lion yawning:
If you want to read more about pandiculation and how modern humans are using this “primal” wisdom to “reset” their systems, and develop “natural” mobility, go right ahead. I’ve got nothing new to add to that conversation.
My mind wants to know: At what point did humans stop instinctively, pandiculating, and start stretching deliberately? And why? Was this a useful and necessariy transition?
When did the yawny, morning system-reset, become a form of remedial therapy (one that many of us feel guilty about not doing)? Or a means of control? Or a show-offy thing to post about online and have competitions based around?
Yoga competitions still baffle me.
Is the move from casual, instinctive pandiculatory movements yet another sacrifice of our evolution from quadruped to biped?
We suppressed our pandiculatory instinct, but gained rocket ships. I’ll leave it to you to judge that however you like.
Did our technological prowess hit a tipping point at which we were able to live with less physical burden? A point at which, with less manual labor, stretching had to become a compartmentalized “thing” to make up for the lack of general movement?
Some people say stretching originated in ancient Greek and Roman times, as a means to train their soldiers.
Or do the origins of modern stretching date back to ancient India, before yoga turned commercial, when it was a means to prepare the body to sit more comfortably for extended periods of quiet meditation (non-competitively…)?
At some point, did stretching became a “thing” to do in addition to living, because we started setting lofty goals for living that were beyond the capacity our bodies currently had?
So could it be that we use stretching to serve the ambitions of our higher brain- the frontal coretex? Whether that be to sit for 12 hours per day to build a piece of life-changing software: Stretching as remediation for sedentarianism (not sure if that’s a real word).
Or whether that be to run a marathon: Physical preparation; preventative care.
Or to get out of the physical pain caused by either of the above: Damage control; emergency care.
I guess it doesn’t really matter. Because its not even about stretching per se, but consciouly noticing when you’re neglecting your body’s needs for healthy movement and responding with the right action. Which may or may not warrant stretching.
Let’s get personal
Let’s make this less about humans, generally, and more about you. Why do YOU personally stretch?
If you keep asking “why” enough times (usually 7 is enough), you can get to the root of any question. So I invite you to try this exercise with me:
Ask yourself, “Why do I stretch?“. And don’t think too hard. Just write the first things that come into your head (below are my answers, yours will hopefully be different, because you are not me):
Monika, why do you stretch? (and let’s just assume for now that I actually stretch)
- Because it makes my body feel good. But why?
- Because my body feels crusty on days that I don’t stretch, and I like not being crusty and in pain. But why?
- Because I’ve had injuries and accidents that have distorted my posture and movement potential, and I need to do something daily to balance things out. But why?
- My body is healthier and functions more efficiently when it is more balanced. But why?
- Because I’m not in pain, and I can participate in my life without distraction or fear or frustration. But why?
- Because life isn’t about being stuck at home shackled to my couch, or bed, passively watching TV, drained of energy. I’ve got stuff to learn, explore, and share, and I need my body to be able to cooperate. But why?
- Because my body is a vessel for me to live life in a way that is meaningful to me, participating with my highest values, part of which is that I genuinely love the feeling of moving for moving’s sake.
Ahhh there it is at #7: I want to be free. Free from pain. Free from restricted movement. Free to explore. Free to learn. Free to enjoy moving. Free to participate with my life and what fulfills me in it. (I guess my workshop is called Liberated Body for a reason).
Is this the answer you came to as well? You want to set your body free? Not just because pain is annoying, and it sucks, or you want to be more flexible, but because your body is your vessel for participating in what is meaningful to you?
I think this could be a universal principle. Humans just want to feel free. Physically, existentially…
Note here that I’m not saying stretching will help you find meaning in life. If only it were that easy… Remember, I don’t really like stretching. But I know my reasons WHY I’m doing what I’m doing with my body, so now I can choose wisely what I do with it.
Stretching may or may not be part of your process, but let’s put stretching aside momentarily and look at the question: What does it actually mean to set your body free?
What if discipline is real freedom?
When people say things like, I want my body to feel “free” and “more open”, what does that mean? What are we trying to set our bodies free from? And what does a free body feel like?
Do you want to be free from restricted body movement? Do you want to be free from how you restrict your own body’s movement?
Is freedom to be able move the way you want to, when you want to, free from worry? (like, if you ever wanted to try a handstand without fear of breaking your money-maker…)
Do you want the freedom to NOT move the way you want to? (like, to sit on a plane for 10 hours, or sit to meditate, and not be crippled afterwards)
Does freedom mean the courage to take up a new, random sport, or go for a difficult hike, and trust your body has the basic body mechanics to perform it without injury?
Speaking of basics, is real freedom is having the discipline not to skip past the basics? To put in the tedious, not so enjoyable work now that you know will bear fruit later.
Maybe freedom is having more options for how to move because you put in the basic, foundational work. You can’t paint a masterpiece without doing the rough sketch, first.
Maybe you don’t have the goal to build a skyscraper, but if you limit yourself to building a foundation that will only support a bungalow, you only have that one option. And one option is really no option. And who knows if you might change your mind about wanting that skyscraper 10 years from now?
My favourite definition of freedom so far is from Krishnamurti’s book Think on These Things. I feel that his definition applies particularly nicely to the body, too.
Per Krishnamurti, freedom means (his quoted words in bold):
Not to want to BE anything more than what is. To be free from ambition.
Acceptance of whatever our bodies are experiencing without needing to immediately fix it, or solve the problem. Freedom to sit with the problem long enough to understand it before trying to solve it. Not seeing the body’s limitations as a reason to condemn onesself, but as something to be curious about and explore.
A state in which we are are not acting out of fear or compulsion, not needing to cling to a sense of security or protection.
As it relates to stretching, sometimes we compulsively stretch tight muscles out of fear, because it makes us feel like we’re doing something useful when we don’t know what else to do, because we lack information. That’s what I did with my hamstring. It ended badly.
Not to operate based on traditions or do something just because other people are doing it.
Many sports/movement forms have a traditional way of doing things- Stretch a certain way, warm-up a certain way, not so much because it is useful, but because it’s how it has always been done. Beware tradition.
To be able to understand who you are, and what you are doing, moment to moment.
Being present with our bodies. Moving with awareness, not just mindlessly going through motions. And knowing why you’re doing it. If you understand who you are and what matters to you, you can link any movement practice to your highest values.
And, freedom is not just to be able to do or say whatever you want, or go wherever you wish, but to understand what is happening, and why.
Paradoxically, setting the body free isn’t about doing whatever you want to do with reckless abandon, ignoring the facts (yes, you are free to run that marathon, but what is your body saying about that, really?).
Freedom isn’t ignoring and outsourcing your responsibilites to your body, even though it might feel that way. It’s about disciplining yourself to understand the real demands your body has. Asking, is this right for me based on my body’s current state of affairs? Have I done my foundational work? Do I know why my knee hurts, and am I ignoring it? And putting in the time to do the work to get things moving well again.
Freedom might be taking ownership of our bodies needs- When taking responsibility becomes not what we feel we have to do, but what we actually want to do, and find delight in it, for it’s own sake.
But I don’t want to take responsibility, that sounds like no fun
I 100% relate. Every year at tax time I just want to ignore my responsibilities. I may have learned how to take responsibility for my body, but I’ve got other problems…
Taking responsibility of our body’s needs for healthy movement initially feels like no fun- even scary- because it means looks at how you’ve failed to pay attention to your body. It means seeing just how long you’ve been going in the wrong direction, and how much work it may take to correct that.Â
If that causes a feeling of overwhelm, you’re not alone. The overwhelm is just a sign you don’t have the information you need to make your first step in a new direction. Get to learnin’!
But its not easy… I had a client tell me that he spent 40 years of his life deliberately dissociating from how his body felt so that he could keep going, doing the things he loved to do, ignoring he was in pain, until one day, after starting to work with me, it became clear that this strategy was no longer going to work, and the reality of just how much work lay ahead of him set in.
OMG I’ve been a bad friend to my body.
Fortunately, I’m pretty good at making befriending-your-body-again process fun (or at least not awful). He is currently doing great. Learning new things about his body every day. In much less pain, able to do the activities he loves with more enjoyment and skill than a few years ago.
A less positive example is a personal training client I had a few years ago. She would ignore when her elbows hurt, yet continues to ask me to put exercises in her program that make her elbows hurt.
She’d say, “it’s fine, I can just work around it”. Even though this was keeping her stuck with sore elbows, she would rather pretend things are ok than understand the root of why her ebows hurt. Her biggest fear is that she’ll stop being able to workout, so she’s clinging to her pushups, and rows for dear life, while the pain is still only tolerable, and not crippling. Ironically, this is the fast track to not being able to workout.
We eventually stopped working together when it became clear that I was not going to enable her. In the end, she confessed that she didn’t believe there was hope that she could ever get out of pain because she was “too old”. She believed she was stuck the way she was, with hurtin’ joints, for life, and that was that. And what could one do or say to change her mind?
Maybe show this amazing video:
And on that inspiring note, perhaps you’d like to sit with these questions:
Why do you stretch? or if you don’t stretch…
Why do you feel like you should stretch?
What does taking responsibility for your body look like for you?
What are your excuses to not take responsibility? (and “I’m too old”, isn’t allowed)
Stay tuned for part 3, which will be a lot more practical, and less philosophical.
