KATRIENS VERSION
Resistant stretching is Contracting a Muscle while simultaneously lengthening it.
This tears Fascia and readjusts Your Joint Alignment while simultaneously increasing Your Body Awareness. With practice, Your Body adapts and creates new sensory connections increasing Your ability to “Feel” Your Body and Feel good in it.
This works best if You focus on the stretched Muscle and even better if You touch it with Your hand.
Resistance Stretching will make You more Flexible and a better Mover while also making it easier to be present in the moment and feel like Your Body is Your Body.
As the cherry on top You’ll increase Your Strength and Stamina alongside enhancing Your Functional Flexibility.
To Do Resistance Stretching You need to:
- Contract the muscle You're Stretching while lengthening it.
- Breathe In when You shorten it and Out when You lengthen it.
- Perform 6-10 reps per limb per exercise.
THE GOODS
When I was 12, I was invited to visit a Tae Kwon Do Class.
Known for it’s lightning-speed head kicks with COOL names like Flying Back Kick, Axe Kick and Tornado Kick You can imagine I was pretty excited to learn these new tactics and flex My Athletic prowess.
Upon arriving at the 2-story, brick building painted in White I climbed to the top of the staiirs where Tae Kwon Do Menots and Masters were refining their kicks, sending heavy bags screeching along the rails with powerful roundhouses and pairing up with one another to teach kids how to do backflips
But most in the class were sitting there stretching.
Inflexible, I was much more interested in learning how to Backflips.
But as I would soon discover my inflexibility was a serious limiting factor to My kicks.
Not only My kicks, but all My Movement Patterns.
With a lack of Flexibility, My mechanics were compromised. Compromised mechanics had led to losses of Power, Strength, Speed and opportunities to explore into the realms beyond My normal Ranges of Motion.
As the Years passed the restrictions slowly got worse. Confining Me to a small window of Movement that when I tested the fringes that bordered the perimeter I would always elicit some sort of pain.
Something Internationally known Biomechanical Expert Bob Cooley knows about. After being hit by a Lincoln Continental, (not exactly a lightweight vehicle), moving at 70 mph Bob Cooley spent 2 decades visiting the best physical therapists, neuromuscular specialists, sports medicine practitioners, and massage therapists across the United States to find a solution to his pain and injury.
The only temporary but consistent relief he found came from stretching.
Knowing there was a missing piece of the puzzle, Bob eventually figured out how to permanently change his Biomechanical Bone Relationships to lose the pain and unlock new and unexplored levels of mobility. He even went on to heal his own clinically-diagnosed Appendicitis through his newly discovered stretching techniques.
Recognizing he was on to something Bob went on to develop Resistance Flexibility Technologies, found The Genius of Flexibility Centers and conduct clinical research in Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation.
He has authored 2 Self-Help Books titled “The Genius of Flexibiliy” and “Resistance Flexibility 1.0” training Professional Performers, Ex-Navy Seals, Olympians and Billionaire CEO’s, he’s appeared on Oprah, Fox, NBC and GMA and has been featured in articles written by World Famous Magazines and News Distributors like NY Times, Sports Illustrated, Self, Outside and Elle.
Dara Torres, 5-Time Olympian even contributes her Wins to Bob Cooley's Resistance Stretching, having this to say:
“I had a lot of specialists helping me in my Olympic quest, and I stretched on my own, but nothing seemed to help until I met Bob Cooley, nothing seemed to help until I met Bob Cooley. Without the flexibility training that Bob developed for me, I could have never accomplished the five Olympic medals I had won in Sydney…. I know that Bob’s program single-handedly developed me psychologically in very specific ways. With this mental edge, I felt personally unbelievable. There was no part of me that wasn’t improved…. What he has figured out about stretching no one knows yet. The world will give Bob the gold.”
Needless to say when I stumbled upon his book I lent an ear, and My Mind was blown.
I got results immediately.
Not as “in the next day immediately” but the very real effects that happen the moment after the stretch.
In this article I’m going to wade into the depths of Resistance FlexibilIty, giving You a tour of what Bob Cooley discovered.
I’m going to show You How You can adjust Your own Bone Alignment Pain-Free, How to Resistance Stretch, and How You can begin getting Real results in Real time.
But first I'm going to tell You the difference between Resistance Stretching and traditional Stretching.
WHAT IS RESISTANT STRETCHING?
Resistance Stretching is exactly what it sounds like, stretching with resistance. By contracting the muscle You’re stretching it coaxes the muscle into lengthening.
Seems contradictory right?
Give it a try. If You can get into a Kneeling pose like Vajrasana (Thunderbolt Pose) and push Your shins and tops of Your feet into the ground as hard as You can. Your torso will ever so slightly begin to fall back. If You keep pushing into the floor, contracting Your Quads and Hip Complex, You’ll slowly move to the current End range of Your Motion.
With practice this will lead You to lying flat on Your Back.
Traditional stretching does the exact opposite. The standard is to relax the muscle so You can let it lengthen, or as most people are accustomed to, relaxing the muscle so You can push the stretch further.
While You do make small gains through relaxing into a stretch, they are usually short-lived and require constant touches throughout the day. Pushing into the stretch, which can lead to over-stretching, doesn’t offer much to be gained either. In this Meta Review with over 152 studies including clinical, athletic and elderly test groups, they found that increasing the mechanical load (pushing) on a relaxed muscle shears muscle fibers system-wide and activates inflammatory pathways leading to a degeneration of muscle fibers and a loss of muscle function.
Essentially they found over-stretching is voluntarily pulling a muscle.
Your motor units are torn out of Your muscle leaving Your muscle relaxed and unable to fire properly. When the muscle is activated during movement, activity or Heaven forbid another bout of stretching, inflammatory pathways get switched on.This consistent low-grade activation of pro-inflammatory signals leads to imbalanced immunity localized around this muscle, eventually leading to muscle degeneration.
When You contract during a stretch the same thing is happening except on a much smaller scale. The tension You create by resisting the stretch acts as a governor on how far You can stretch the muscle This leads to small tears and rips in the motor units and the length of the sarcomeres, (smallest muscle fiber), they’re connected to.
Instead of pulling the whole muscle, You tear small sections of it and it triggers an adaptive response like weight training, Leaving You with longer muscles that have a new and optimized length for maximum tension.
In short, You become more flexible and increase relative strength and stamina at the same time.
If You push into a stretch it’s like going to the gym and lifting the heaviest weight You possibly can everyday. Eventually You won’t e able to repair and You’ll slowly get weaker over time.
Contracting during a stretch is like following a professionally periodized workout routine by an Olympic Weightlifting Coach, except You're the coach.
Take a moment to dust Your shoulders off.
With the right inputs this leads to a steady and consistent cycle of gains that makes You feel light on Your toes and ready to burst forth brand new light into Your Day.
HOW TO CONTRACT WHILE STRETCHING
- Repose: This type of contraction occurs when You are getting into a difficult position. Usually unconsciously You actively contract to facilitate this stretch. These positions are often seen in Yoga Asanas.
The best example is when You get into fetal position or stretch out while laying on Your back with You hands overhead. Animals like cats and dogs also do this kind of stretching when they roll around in the sun. This requires very little contraction but it’s still enough to trigger a positive response.
- Dynamic: Actively moving dynamically into long ranges of motions. Your muscles have to fire to get You into long positions. A low-level contraction gets You into that position.
This is seen in dynamic sport warmups, when You try to kick Your leg as high as Your Head or when You do arm swings.
- Isometric: When You get into position and contract against whatever You're pushing against, be it the floor, wall or Yourself without moving. Isometric contractions during stretching take the movement happening outside of Your Body to movements happening inside Your Body.
Slowly Your muscles and bones are moving into better positions as You contract against the stretch.
A classic example is doing a Modified Hurdler’s Stretch but then driving the Heel of Your stretched-out leg into the ground instead of passively sitting.
- Resistance: This is the Magicians Secret, The Mystical Orb, The Fountain of Muscular Hydration and the Genie within Aladdin’s lamp if You will. This is when You actively contract against the stretch while lengthening the muscle.
Like when Your Friend needs help moving and they ask You to put Your arms out to hold a stack of books from their 2 storey Book Shelf and the books are too heavy but You keep trying to hold them up anyway.
That feeling in Your Biceps is resistance Stretching and I’m going to explain it in the section HOW TO RESISTANT STRETCH.
But before we get started I’m going to explain to You what’s actually happening.
WHAT HAPPENS DURING RESISTANCE STRETCHING & HOW TO BE YOUR OWN CHIROPRACTOR
Resistance Stretching requires an extreme amount of Force. In fact, the more force You can generate the more effective it is. During Resistance Stretching You are moving against Your Fascia. The strength of Your Fascia is immense and accounts for Your eccentric (lengthening) movement during the stretch being 2-6x stronger than Your concentric (shortening) movement. This means if You can move a 20 lbs weight from Your longest muscular position to Your shortest muscular position, (think of the first half of a bicep curl), it will take 40 - 120 lbs to resist moving it from shortest to longest position! (Think the second half of a Bicep Curl).
When You combine contraction of the muscle with elongation all of Your connective tissues are impacted. This means not only does Your Muscle get the primary focus, but Your Tendons, ligaments and whatever else Your Fascia surrounds is getting lengthened and moved into an optimized position. During the lengthening phase of the stretch, dense Fascia that has been built up over misuse and scar tissue that has formed from cross-linking, dehydration and injury is getting shredded apart.
Torn up strips of Fascial ribbons are then transported into Your Lymphatic System to be cleared from Your Body and make room for the restructuring of Your Tissues as a result of adaptive response.
Tearing apart bunched up Fascia is like untangling a giant knot of fishing line. The process of ripping Your Fascia apart in this fashion is like methodically pulling the little loops of entangled line as it begins to untwine itself. Liberating each loop loosens the bunched line leaving You with more Space to work with and an end result of a usable, and most likely very lengthy, piece of string. The only difference being Your shredded Fascia gets removed from site instead of being reincorporated.
MOBILITY
When Your Dense Scar Tissue and Fascia break apart it unlocks new and unexplored territories of Space. Like cutting away the outer skin that enwraps a sausage Your Muscles, Bones and Connective tissue are able to scout into new lands of Movement as the restraint is cleaved away.
Unlike the care-free, whimsical Sausage Your Connective Tissue has responsibility. One of which is to influence Your Bones and their positioning in relation to one another. Extra Space in Your Fascia allows for more room between Your Bones. The Rotational Interrelationships Your Bones hold with one another can then be readjusted putting Your Joints in Optimized Positions. Similar to a Chiropractic Adjustment.
In fact it’s common to hear “Pops”, “Cracks” and Cavitations, (sounds like an uncrinkling pop can), during Resistant Stretching. At the end of Your Stretch these new- found joint positions give You access to new Ranges of Mobility that were previously inaccessible.
Bob Cooley had a great analogy in one of his classes:
“The skeletal structure stacks up like a building, but a building doesn’t move around. If You had to rely on Your skeleton to handle all the impact forces You’d destroy Your joints in 3 months.
So the body has this musculature and connective tissue that's surrounded by Fascia together wrapping the joint, supporting the weight on the outside of tit and allowing it to float.
When weight comes down it’s all distributed outside and You get a nice suspension within the joint itself.
Dense Fascia or scar tissue collapses the structure, creates compression and You lose the suspension.”
Tearing away dense Fascia restore native architecture, readjust Your Bones and returns suspension to Your Joints.
STRENGTH AND SIZE
Having too much or imbalanced Fascia makes it hard for Your Muscles to do their job and function in the way that they want to. Coming back to our Sausage analogy, having too much Fascia is like having the skin that holds the sausage together be as thick Your Finger. Instead of being able to flex, bend, compress, squeeze and squish the sausage would become stiff and rigid like dense rubber.
It’s the same for Your Muscle.
Too much Fascia and it restricts Your Muscles ability to hydrate, expand, compress, shorten, lengthen or anything else a healthy muscle needs to be able to do. This is evident in Dr. John Jaquish’s Hyperplasia Protocol. Dr. John Jaquish, a Medical research Doctor who completed his dissertation in Biomedical engineering at Rushmore University, is considered an expert in Osteogenic Loading and Muscle Growth, and is most well-known as the Founder of Osteostrong Devices and the X3 System.
Training Professional Athletes Dr. Jaquish’s system elicits immense Strength and Hypertrophy gains in a short amount of time. One of the things he leverages to accomplish this is Fascial Stretching.
When Fascia is structured in its native architecture and balanced in a way that supports it’s function it slides, glides, stretches and COMPRESSES to facilitate movement externally but also internally. Because Fascia embeds itself within every cell it is subject to internal and external pressures. That means Fascia is exposed to pressure from inside of what it wraps and from pressures that come from the outside of what it’s wrapping.
While Fascia does integrate itself into Your Cells, it also has pronounced layers as You work from the inner depths, like Your Viscera, to Your Outer reaches,, like Your Skin. This hierarchy is also seen between each layer.
An example of this can be seen in the photo below:
Under the Deep Fascia of Your Muscle Tissue lays the Muscle, which holds a Muscle Fascicle, which embeds a Muscle Fiber which is home to a Myofibril. Each of these structure are also wrapped by Fascia, creating layers between each other.
Each of these “Fascial wraps” are subject to the internal and external pressures We were talking about before.
The muscle structure above is like the example of our Seasoned and Saintly Sausage, with it’s skin being synonymous with our “Fascial Wraps”.
If we push the sausage with our finger that's an external pressure, if we insert an IV and pump it full of water that’s an internal pressure.
The skin wrapping the sausage is subject to both.
The Fascia surrounding Your Muscle feels those same pressures. When the Fascia is thick and existing in excess it prevents the internal pressures from stretching the Sarcolemma of the Muscle Cell minimizing Your Cell’s Growth. In contrast, When Your Fascia is balanced, light and thin, it is elastic and malleable, allowing Your Muscle Cell’s to stretch.
When timed properly this can lead to Muscle Cell splitting through super hydration, increasing muscle growth and strength through Sarcoplasmic Hypertrophy. This is the premise behind Dr. Jaquish’s Hyperplasia Protocol.
STAMINA
When You Resistant Stretch Your not only shredding the Fascia but Your also doing a controlled tearing of the sarcomeres within the Myofibril. These are Your Muscle proteins that live within the Myofibril in the above diagram.
Unlike over-stretching only a certain percentage are subject to tearing rather than the whole lot. The combination of these micro-tears with the removal of excess Fascia allows the muscle to rebuild itself at a new and elongated length.
With this rebuilding comes the addition of new motor units placed at a further distance along the muscle allowing for peak contraction to occur at a longer length When Your Muscle has a longer resting length it is able to produce more power with the same amount of energy increasing muscular efficiency and leading to an ability for You to Be able to produce strength feats for a longer period of time.
In other words, Your Stamina increases and the time it takes You to feel tired due to muscular fatigue decreases.
SENSORY AWARENESS
With New Space and a rebuilding of neural tissue in the form of Motor Units there is also an opportunity for You to build New Proprioceptive Sensors and heighten Your Spatial Awareness and Sensory Sensitivity.
When Motor Units get torn during the stretch so to do Your Proprioceptive Sensors.
.
This is why You feel so light on Your toes and sometimes even as if You’ve lost balance after a stretch. Or You may feel as if Your Limb is a whole new piece of Your Body, like Your meeting it for the first time.
When You’re aware of this and pay attention to Your New Sensations and Feelings Your Experience becomes salient, allowing Your Pre-Frontal Cortex to be present with the moment, access Your Default Mode Network, and create enhanced Sensory Connections through Bottom-Up Processing and Hemispheric Synchronization.
Ultimately Amplifying Your Sensory Self.
With all the goodies wrapped and ready to go, let's launch into the How-to of this article. The precision-cut, salt-brined tenderloin steak of Your Meat and Potatoes dish, the rainbow sprinkles to Your Ice Cream Sundae.
This is Your Step-by-step “How to Resistance Stretch”
HOW TO RESISTANCE STRETCH
Resistance Stretching is more about the intensity of contraction than it is about the Range of Motion.
Each stretch is treated as a series of reps, ranging from 6-10 per limb per exercise.
And it’s work.
Definitely an unorthodox way of finding relaxation.
I’ve embedded a video for some Visual stimulation in the “Steps” section below.
Through each rep Your range of Motion will increase to some degree as You immediately begin to remove Fascia, coax Your Bones into alignment and begin to explore new Space.
First You’ll want to know Your true Range of Motion (ROM). For any given stretch or movement Your true ROM is the point where You can no longer actively contract Your Muscle. Basically the length where You lose the ability to resist, (contract), during the lengthening portion of the movement.
The range of Your true ROM is called Your Functional Flexibility and is the limit of Your usable range. It is also the point at which You’ll stop each exercise.
THE STEPS
- Pick Your Stretch.
Any stretch will do, (The Genius of Flexibility has a full library of them). If You want You can even explore new positions, helping You to experientially understand how Your Body works.
However, for this example let's just go with a classic “Couch Stretch”.
- Get into the Shortest Position:
Start in the stretched muscle’s shortest possible position.
In the case of our Couch Stretch, You would bend at Your Knee that’s touching the ground to move Your Hips further from the wall and closer to the floor in front of You.
- Resist! (Contract)
Contrast against whatever You're resisting, (i.e the wall, floor or Yourself) to create tension.
In the Couch Stretch You would push into the wall as hard as You can with the top of Your foot.
- Stretch into the longest Position:
While still contracting, move into Your longest position until You reach Your True Range of Motion, contracting as hard as possible the entire time.
This means for the Couch Stretch You would bend again at Your Knee that’s touching the ground, except this time towards the wall, bringing the front of Your Hips away from the Wall.
This video gives You a Demo starting at the 2:00 min mark
- Repeat 6-10 times then switch legs.
That’s it!
The Key is to contract from short position to long position, then back to short position.
That’s considered 1 rep.
If You're contracting against Your Body, (say pulling Your left Leg into a Couch Stretch with Your Left Arm, You’ll have to take turns letting each muscle win. (i.e. For lengthening Your arms wins, for shortening Your Leg wins,)
WHAT YOUR LOOKING FOR
If You want to self-assess and see if You're doing it correctly, here's the signs You want to look out for:
- It should be labor-intensive.
- You may hear pops, cracks and cavitations
- Afterwards You will feel lighter and more free in Your Movements.
- Each rep should create a little more ROM or a greater capacity to resist.
HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR RESISTANT STRETCH
While You can fly at the stretches wily-nilly and still get a result there’s some minor shifts that You can make to ramp up the effects.
Minor Details that make Big Changes, these small hacks solidify connection and support Right Hemisphere Leadership, Whole Body Integration and Presence.
All with the Benefit of making You a more fluid, )and flexible). Powerhouse.
Awareness
- Being fully aware of the tension in Your Body increases the outcome of Your stretch while also encouraging the changes to stick over a shorter period of time. Awareness allows Your Pre-Frontal Cortex to make adjustments to the Bone interrelationships Your Default Mode Network considers normal. -
This re-calibrates muscle tension and alters neural firing patterns to begin shifting You towards uncharted positional territory.
(If those terms have You lost check out this article Biorensegroty)
One way You can hack this is by using Your Hands, When You have the opportunity, to touch the muscle that's being stretched.
Your Hands are extremely dense in sensory receptors. Hand contact on the muscle being stretched floods Your Brain with sensation increasing the amount of information it receives from that muscle.
If the information was Water running out of Your tap its the difference between a steady flow of drops (no hand) and turning the tap wide open to flood the sink (hand on).
This increases Awareness, speeding up the rate of learning and Your ability to intuitively recognize the interrelationships between Your Bones, how Your Body holds them and the tonic firing patterns that hold them in place.
Relax
- Simple as Pie right? -
Maybe, squeezing as hard as You can and working against it isn’t always a cake walk and trying to relax into it isn’t exactly instinctual.
What You’re looking to do is create maximal tension while simultaneously flowing into the movement. The same type of relaxation that comes from Play, Sports and Sex.
Finding Your Breath helps You do this.
The idea is to fall into the tension. Trying to block it out of Your mind generates stress. Falling into it, even if it’s uncomfortable, creates unity between You and the discomfort of the tension, which as paradoxical as it seems is comforting.
This comfort lets You relax.
Naturally as You resist the stretch’s You’ll probably be inclined to hold Your Breath. Each stretch will challenge the way You Breath and in honesty it’s best to let Your Body show You new ways of breathing as You get into different positions.
There’s only 2 things to remember:
- Breath OUT during the lengthening phase and IN during the shortening phase.
Whether it’s through groans, moans, pursed lips, Your nose, Your mouth, Your Chest, Belly or combination of them all let Your Body do it’s thing.
Keep in mind that if You have tension in Your Body it’s likely creating some sort of tension on You diaphragm warping its shape like a balloon stuck in a box.
Releasing tension through Resistance Stretching will challenge the borders of the box but will eventually knock them down.
- You won’t know how You’re going to Breathe until You get there.
Instead of trying to create the perfect Breath, controlling its rate and rhythm, just breathe and pay attention to what’s happening easing Your Breath mechanics towards the Out and In pattern above and slowly towards being fluid.
Trust that Your Body knows best of what it needs in that moment and become curious about what it has to offer.
Play!
- Make up Your own positions! -
Creating Your own positions experientially envelopes You in the language of Your Body. If You want to create a mind-body connection at an uncanny rate this is the way to do it.
During the process of finding a position or during a stretch ask Yourself “What’s happening?”
Interact with Your mechanics and act like a detective looking for clues and letting things bubble to the surface.
Don’t be afraid to feel around with Your hands as You let Your language unfold.
Some tips?
- Focus on a muscle group, (i.e. Your Hamstrings).
- Pick a movement that includes that muscle group. (i.e. squatting)
- Get into a position where You can stretch the muscle group that holds Your focus. (i.e. lying on your back like a upside down turtle, grabbing the balls of one foot with Your hands)
- Resist/Contract in the opposite direction of the movement You picked, in this case squatting. (i.e. Pull Your heel down while Your arms win and pull Your leg up).
In this example You would be stretching Your Hamstrings!
But the key is to play around and discover it on Your Own.
Your options are limitless. For example, Your Upper leg, Lower leg and ankle can each move in 27 different ways. That’s 27 x 27 x 27, that’s close to 20,000 movement combinations.
And that’s only for one leg.
So have fun!
SUMMARY
In Short:
So now that You know how Resistance Stretching works, How You can use it to increase You Strength, Stamina and Flexibility, The steps to Resistance Stretching, How to Correct and Assess Your Own Progress and the tweaks You can make to skyrocket Your Success. You should be well on Your way.
Of Course this is just a taste of what Bob Cooley’s book “The Genius of Flexibility” has to offer. Bob Goes into covering Physiological and Psychological Health, How Resistance Stretching affects Your Emotions and Personality, A testing method to find Your own personal Stretching routine and Four Stretching Flows ranging from Beginner to Expert, with photos to boot! He even has a Partner Flow if You're looking to stretch with the Guy who’s asking You how long You’ll be doing Pullups in the Squat Rack. Or Your Lover.
Whatever floats Your Boat.
You can find Bob Cooley’s Book in the resources mentioned below.
So what do You think about Resistance Stretching? Have You given it a try? Do You have any questions or feedback? Get in touch, I’d love to hear Your thoughts!
RESOURCES MENTIONED
Dr. Jaquish’s Hyperplasia Protocol.
