Balance Archives - GB Personal Training Ltd

Why Your Hamstrings are Tight and Stretching May Not be the Answer

By Greg Brookes

You have 3 Hamstring muscles that run up the back of your thighs, the Semimembranosus, Semitendinosus, and Biceps Femoris.

Your hamstring muscles are responsible for knee flexion (pulling your heels to your buttocks) and hip extension (driving your upper leg backwards).

These important muscles also act as a fundamental braking system during locomotion so when you walk down a hill it is your hamstrings that are slowing you down.

Many people nowadays struggle with tight hamstrings.

Why are your Hamstrings Tight?

Before stretching your hamstrings it is important to ask why these muscles get tight in the first place. Like with most things, it is more important to address the cause of the problem rather than the symptoms.

Nothing in the human body works in isolation, everything is connected so when thinking about the hamstring muscles it is worth thinking about the rest of the body too and how the hamstring could relate.

Below I have listed 3 of the main causes of tight Hamstrings:

# 1 – Too Much Sitting Can Cause Tight Hamstrings

If you spend most of your time sitting then the legs remain bent for the majority of time.

When the legs are bent the hamstrings are slackened off. If you remain in this seated position for too long then the body will draw in the slack from the hamstrings.

Later when you come to stand and straighten the legs your hamstrings will feel tighter.

Your body is a master adapter, if you sit down all day your body will adapt to sitting!

Solution:

I think you probably know the answer to this one already.

Spend more time standing up with your legs straightened. Set a timer on your computer and get up and walk around every 50 minutes.

We are not designed to sit down for long periods of time so don’t do it, you will never win!

To help actively lengthen your hamstrings and open up your lower back perform 5 Yoga Squats as often as possible.

Work on getting deeper into the movement as time progresses.

Here’s how to perform the Yoga Squat:

# 2 – Tight Quads Can Cause Tight Hamstrings

If the front of your thighs or Quadriceps are tight due to incorrect recruitment of your Buttocks and/or incorrect workout programming, then this can effect your Hamstrings.

Your Quadriceps attach to the bottom of the front of your pelvis, if these muscles are shortened then they will actively rotate your pelvis forwards lengthening the hamstrings.

So although your hamstrings may feel tight they may actually just be long and weak.

If this is the case then you would be better off stretching your Quadriceps and strengthening (not stretching) your Hamstrings.

If you did stretch your Hamstrings then you will make the problem worse because you provide yet more slack for the Quads to reel in.

Solution:

Stretch your Quadriceps more often. Little and often is better then only once now and again.

A very simple Quad stretch that is often performed incorrectly involves taking hold of your one foot, while standing, and pulling your heel to your buttocks.

Once in this stretched position squeeze your buttocks tight and rotate the bottom of your pelvis upwards while keeping the knee pointing downwards.

To encourage your Quad stretches to stick perform a Hamstring strengthening exercise immediately after your stretch.

The bodyweight Single Leg Deadlift below is the perfect exercise to practice after your Quad stretch:

# 3 – Weak Core Muscles Can Cause Tight Hamstrings

Your pelvis is the muscle attachment site for both the front thigh muscles (quadriceps) and back thigh muscles (hamstrings).

Your Core muscles, including your abs attach to the pelvis too.

When you walk or run your pelvis needs to stay still and in control in order to provide a stable platform for your legs to operate under.

If your pelvis wobbles around, like it does on most sedentary people these days, then you risk injuring your lower back as well as other areas throughout your kinetic chain.

Good core muscles that activate correctly are vital for maintaining pelvic stability.

If your Core and Abs muscles are not doing their job correctly then your Hamstrings will help to stabilise your pelvis.

When the hamstrings are sharing the load with the core muscles they will not only tighten but also reduce their efficiency at what they are primarily designed to do.

Regular Hamstring injuries can be due to weak core and abs muscles!

Solution:

Strengthening and improving your Core muscles and improving their ability to activate correctly will enable your Hamstring to get back to the job they where designed to do.

Just performing hundreds of Crunches or Sit Ups is not the solution here. You need to actively train your pelvis to stabilise during movement.

The Deadbug core exercise below is an excellent way to work on improving your pelvic stability during movement:

I show you exactly how to improve your Inner and Outer Core and develop your Pelvic Core Stability in my:

37 Core and Abs Workouts Program

Conclusions

Stretching your Hamstrings may not be the solution for your tight hamstrings.

Like most things in life finding the root cause of the problem is more important than just attacking the symptom.

If you do suffer from tight hamstrings then you may want to consider your lifestyle, quad muscles and core muscles before embarking on a hamstring stretching program.

Do you suffer with tight hamstrings? Let me know more below…

What Babies Can Teach Us About How We Should Exercise

By Greg Brookes

Have you ever noticed the postural similarities between a baby and the elderly?

Understanding the development of the human body will help you realise why certain exercises are great for your posture and why others are destroying it.

Later I’ll be showing you what exercises you should focus on but for now lets look at what human development teaches us.

It Starts with Pronation

When a child is born, and even prior to birth, they adopt the fetal position. In anatomical terms this is referred to as being in pronation.

During Pronation the arms and legs are turned inwards and the body is in flexion or bent forwards.

It is also interesting to note that this position is adopted as a defensive position during times of danger, it’s comfortable and protects the vital organs. Shock most people and they will instinctively move into pronation.

Moving into Supination

As time passes the body starts to open out like a flower in spring. The spine begins to straighten and the limbs, through the development of muscle, start to turn outwards. The body moves from Pronation into Supination.

Finally we get to a position, all being well, where the body is fully upright. The spine develops its natural “S Curve” and the strength of our back muscles and Buttocks keeps us upright and open.

Maintaining an upright and Supinated position signals to the world that we are strong, confident and mean business!

Ends Back in Pronation

As we age gravity starts to take its toll. Muscles start to weaken and the body, slowly at first, and quickly towards the end brings us back down towards the fetal position.

Just like a wilting flower the body starts flexing forwards and the limbs begin to travel inwards.

Elderly people in their final years struggle to straighten their limbs and spend most of their time looking at the ground 🙁

How to Prolong Your Healthy Posture

The way you exercise will have a huge impact on how your body looks and reacts.

If you want to maintain your upright posture and stay in Supination rather than moving back into Pronation then you need to take action.

Exercising to improve your posture is not as difficult as you may think. All you need to do is promote more Supination within the body.

Here are the 3 key areas you need to address:

# 1 – Extension

Rather than spending all of your time on Flexion based exercises like Crunches that take you further into the fetal position.

Work on exercises that promote extension like: Back extensions, Cobras, and Sky Divers.

Here’s an example of the Back Extension exercise (note how it counteracts forward flexion)

# 2 – External Rotation

Have you ever seen someone running and flicking their feet outwards at the back?

Take a look next time you are in your local park and you’ll be surprised! When the knees come in and the feet flick out at the back that is usually due to weak external rotation of the hips. In other words, their buttocks are too weak to keep their legs in a straight line. The legs are being pulled into a pronated position.

Question: What is the biggest problem with feet today, and hence why the orthotic industry is booming? Answer: Pronation of the feet! Strengthen your External Rotation Muscles or Buttocks and the Pronation of the feet will more times than not disappear.

Work harder on exercises like: Bridges and Single Leg Deadlifts

Here’s a Tutorial video of a the Single Leg Deadlift:

# 3 – Supination

Most kinds of pushing exercises will put you into Pronation, or in other words fold everything inwards. Most kinds of pulling exercises will put you into Supination, or open everything outwards.

So hours spent on Push Ups and Bench Press Exercises will only help to promote bad posture, and turn the body inwards.

It’s ironic that most people work on their chest muscles to increase the appearance of their chest when they are actually only turning their posture in on itself and hiding their prized possessions. If you really want to reveal a good chest then work on exercises that lift the chest and open the body out like a beautiful flower.

Work harder on Pulling based exercises like: Rows, Deadlifts or Cable Pulls.

Here’s a video of an Single Leg Dumbbell Row:

Conclusions

We all only have a finite amount of time on this earth. We start off in a Pronated position and end in a Pronated position but how long you remain strong and upright is up to you.

You can either work hard to destroy your posture or you can work hard to improve it. With any luck you will work hard to maintain a beautiful flowing posture well into your twilight years.

5 Movements You Must Include in Every Workout

By Greg Brookes

1. Squat

We all squat when we sit and get up off the toilet or a chair. In many countries people still work and play from theÂ squatÂ position. Squatting is a natural movement that takes the hands to the floor. Squatting involves using the Buttocks (Glutes), the Thighs (Quads), the back of the Thighs (Hamstrings), the Core muscles both front and back. There is a huge amount of muscle activation during the squat. For fat loss or just developing pure brute strength you cannot beat the squat.

2. Lunge

Whenever you walk up some stairs you are lunging. Lunging is like an exaggeration of the gait pattern. During sports you lunge all the time, watch a tennis player and see how they lunge for the ball as they run backwards and forwards. Lunging is a bit more tricky than Squatting because there are more balance requirements and you tend to overload one leg more than the other. All this makes lunging very demanding both physically and neurologically. Again the lunge is a great tool for fat loss and highly underused. For more sports specific strength then you canâ€™t beatÂ omnidirectional lunges.

3. Deadlift

Have you ever picked up a box from the floor? This is the deadlift pattern. It is highly dependent on the back of the body (posterior chain). What I donâ€™t mean here is just the back, rather the Buttocks (Glutes), Back of the Thighs (Hamstrings), and also the Spinal Erectors. Basically the hips do the work and the rest serve just to stabilse.Â DeadliftsÂ are a real strongmanâ€™s exercises. Great for overall strength, muscle development, and improving posture. It is one of the great full body pulling movements. If you only had to do one exercise then this is the one!

4. Push

We can divide the push into 2 separate categories: Horizontal and Vertical. So aÂ Push UpÂ would be a horizontal push and an overhead press would be Vertical. Most pushing exercises require strong core stability. The only time you wonâ€™t really use your core is if you are lying on a bench. So to get more â€œBang for your Buckâ€ donâ€™t lye down when exercising! Most men spend too much time pushing, trying to develop a good looking chest. Too many pushing exercises can make drastic postural changes to the body. Ensure you match ever pushing exercise with a Pulling exercise!

Â 5. Pull

Again like Push you can divide these exercise into: Horizontal and Vertical. A horizontal Pull would be a row and a vertical Pull would be a Chin Up. Most people donâ€™t do enough Pulling exercises. Pulling is crucial to neutralise all the time we spend sitting in a forward slouched position. Pulling will help get the shoulders back and improve posture and ultimately better breathing. AlthoughÂ Pulling based exercisesÂ can be more difficult to achieve without equipment they must be pat of any program.

Whatâ€™s Missing?

I could have also addedÂ One Legged exercisesÂ to this list but I think these fall under the 5 movements above. For example you can Squat with one leg and Deadlift with one leg. One Legged exercises are merely a way of progressing on from the the above movement patterns.Â Rotational exercisesÂ could have been added too but as with One Legged exercises I see these as a progression on from the above 5. We generally rotate anyway with most movement but you could exaggerate this with a One Armed Push or Pull, or a Lunge with Rotation etc.

Do you struggle with any of these movements? Love to know below…

10 Things You Didn’t Know About Stretching

By Greg Brookes

#1 – You’re Not Just Stretching Muscle

Every time you stretch you are not just hitting your muscles but other soft tissue too. Fascia, the connective tissue that surrounds muscles, blood vessels and nerves also gets stretched. Lets also not forget the tendons that connect your muscles to your bones. So next time you think you are performing a quad stretch realise that so much more is being put under strain and you may not be targeting the muscle as much as you think you are.

#2 – Everything is Connected

Thomas Myers in his revolutionary book “Anatomy Trains” describes how the body is comprised of connecting pathways of soft tissue. These pathways run through the entire body, some connecting soft tissue from head to toe. With the body interconnected in this way it turns localised stretching into globalised stretching. In other words, by stretching one section of the soft tissue pathway you are influencing other areas throughout that pathway. A simple example is how repeated wearing of high heel shoes shortens the Superficial Back Line (runs from the sole of the foot to the forehead up the back of the body) and can result in back pain and headaches.

#3 – Stretching De-Activates Muscles

The act of lengthening a muscle reduces the ability for that muscle to contract. This is a very useful theory that can be used to assist and activate other muscles. For example stretching the Hamstrings can assist in the firing of the Glutes if the firing pattern of the hip extensors is off. Stretching a muscle certainly will not render it useless but it will reduce its ability to contract.

#4 – We Should All Stretch Differently

We are all unique and have different length tensions throughout the body. There is no “One size fits all” stretching program. Just like tuning a musical instrument we must only address the strings that need adjustment. It is important to understand your own body and then make adjustments accordingly.

#5 – Breathing Influences the Stretch

Deep breathing stimulates the Parasympathetic nervous system and this causes the body to relax. Mediation makes good use of this technique, as does Yoga which is fundamentally about â€The Breathâ€. When the body is relaxed it lets go of muscle tension. When you stretch you can use the breath to increase your stretching range of movement. As you slowly move into the stretch take a deep and long breath out and feel your tension release, do not fight it. As you breath in come out of the stretch slightly and then return into the stretch as you breath out again.

#6 – Stretching Can Be a Waste of Time

Stretching can be a waste of time if your body NEEDS to retain that tension for stabilisation reasons. A good example is the hamstrings being used to maintain core stability through pelvic alignment. No matter how many times you stretch the Hamstrings they will continue to Grip the pelvis so long as your core stability is weak. The solution is to strengthen the core muscles that maintain pelvic alignment thus enabling the hamstrings to relax. If a muscle simply wonâ€™t lengthen then you must look at why it is being held under tension.

#7 – Stretching Can Cause Injury

Knots, Adhesion’s and Scar Tissue leave our soft tissue weak and vulnerable. Putting poor quality soft tissue under strain through stretching can cause further damage. Think about stretching an elastic band with a knot tied in the centre, the knot gets tighter and produces weak breaking points. Spending time addressing your soft tissue through massage and foam rolling will go a long way to improving it quality.

#8 – Stretching is NOT a Warm Up

Static stretching has it place at the beginning of a workout as part of a corrective exercise program but should not be thought of as a warm up. Mobilising the joints and dynamically taking the body through the movement patterns used in the forthcoming workout are far better ways to prepare the body for exercise. Stretching should be thought of as corrective and nothing more!

#9 – Better to Stretch Away From Exercise

Stretching can be done at anytime but stretching when the body is relaxed is the most effective time for correcting muscle tissue length. Stretching in the evening is best. If you try and change soft tissue length during your workout time the sympathetic nervous system is often active and the muscles finds it hard to relax. You can however perform maintenance stretching at this time.

#10 – Stretching is 3 Dimensional

We have over 600 muscles in the body and they all run in different directions. When you stretch you need to consider the angle of the muscles on stretch. For example you have 3 Hamstrings and by just internally or externally rotating the legs you can hit different muscles. If you find one stretch easy then try it from a different angle. You body will always chose the easiest path so look for the lines with restriction.