IS STRETCHING the answer to your pain?

(Spoiler alert, likely NO!)

The muscles on the inside (adductors) and back (hamstrings) of your thighs and buttocks all attach to your pelvic bones. Tightness here can contribute to the tightness of the tissues and muscles of your pelvic floor region. Stretching the muscles of your legs and buttocks gently on a daily basis can assist with decreasing the tension of the pelvic floor muscles.

Here’s the but: the evidence is clear, and confirmed clinically at CPT, that stretching is far from the answer to pain anywhere in the body.

Optimally positioning the pelvis and hip can be much more effective than just stretching the hamstrings and adductors. Helping clients “find” and re-activate their hamstrings, gluts or adductors often takes care of the constant tension people describe in the pelvis.

It’s difficult for people to believe that activation is typically much more helpful than passive stretching, but when they experience it in their body, they know!

If you’ve been stretching for weeks and it’s not alleviating your symptoms, please come see us and let us set you up on a prescriptive exercise program after a thorough exam of your functional movement.

Passive stretching is RARELY ever the solution to long-term pain patterns.
Post-partum women’s bodies crave stability and typically don’t respond well to passive stretching alone.

Moving the muscle as you lengthen it (eccentric contraction) and while it’s under load seems to be one of the most effective ways to calm down an overactive muscle. Many times people report feeling “constant hip flexor tightness.” Yet, we can confirm the actual muscle is often not really shortened but it’s just being overused and gets tense. Loading while moving and lengthening these muscles works much better!!!