Stretch appeal

Stretching has had a mixed press in recent years with doubt being thrown upon its usefulness in preventing injuries and improving sports performance.

But there is a strong relationship between stretching, tissue healing and health. This magic plays out in the connective tissue of the body.

Little was known about fascia or connective tissue until a few decades ago. Anatomists typically dissected the body along traditional lines to look for bones, muscles, vessels, nerves and organs, cutting through the “ fascial packing tissue”. Dr Frank Willard of the University of New England was one of the first researchers to dissect cadavers with a view to exploring the fascia. This inelastic soft tissue maintains the shape of the body by not only connecting and compartmentalising muscles and organs but also running throughout them.

Healthy connective tissue has many layers gliding over each other when we move. If this gliding is reduced then less movement is possible and we are likely to experience more pain from the sensory nerve endings nestling within them.

People coming into my clinic are often bewildered by why the most innocent of movements can produce unexpected levels of pain, especially in the low back. Previous injuries don’t seem to have been severe enough to be responsible for what they feel years later.

Dr Helene Langevin of Harvard Medical School, a current researcher into fascia has found that momentary twinges of pain result from small micro tears in a muscle or ligament. These may not fully heal; the inflammation will silently persist. Layers of fascia adhere together, glide less easily and this results in stiffer movement. Pain makes us reluctant to move which makes everything worse. Shoulder problems easily develop this way.

Her research focuses on the role fascia plays in immunity. On the backs of mice. Now, unlike the poor zebra fish involved in research into scoliosis, the mice in Dr Langevin’s lab have a pretty nice time of it. She has found a back-stretching position in which they fully relax; so they do this once a day. It’s like a yoga retreat. Her results show that stretching can both increase production of the factors which heal inflammation, and lower pan sensitivity.

A a first aid measure, just 2 hours after a movement which has provoked pain gentle stretching will attract neutrophils to the area, helping it heal better.

All is not lost however with old injuries or chronic pain - because connective tissue is ever-changing and plastic; stretching for 10 mins a day can start healing inflammation and also lessen the amount of fibrosis or scar tissue. Presumably the layers in the connective tissue will then begin to glide better.

Start hunting out those niggly bits in your body which could do with a spring clean.