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When you think about gaining muscle, stretching is probably not the first thing
that pops into your head. But did you know that stretching plays a critical
role in building muscle?
Every muscle in your body is enclosed in a bag of tough connective tissue known
as fascia. Fascia is important for holding your muscles in their proper place
in your body.
But your fascia may also be holding back your muscle growth. Think for a moment
about your muscles. You train them and feed them properly. They want to grow
and will grow but something is holding them back. They have no room to grow!
Because fascia is so tough, it doesn't allow the muscle room to expand. It is
like stuffing a large pillow into a small pillowcase. The size of the muscle
won't change regardless of how hard you train or how well you eat because the
connective tissue around your muscles is constricting the muscles within.
The best example of this is the calf muscle. The lower leg is riddled with
fascia because of its tremendous weight-bearing duties in the body. It is
because of this fascia that many trainers have great difficulty developing
their calves.
The solution: stretching.
Using the pillowcase example from above, imagine you can expand the size of the
pillowcase by stretching it. Suddenly, the pillow within has more room and will
expand to fill that new space.
By stretching your muscles under specific conditions, you can actually stretch
your fascia and give your muscles more room to grow.
The key to effective fascial stretching is the pump. The best time to stretch to
expand the bags that are holding in your muscles is when your muscles are
pumped up full of blood.
When your muscles are fully pumped up, they are pressing against the fascia. By
stretching hard at that time, you increase that pressure on the fascia greatly,
which can lead to expansion of the fascia.
One of the major reasons Arnold Schwarzenegger had such incredible chest
development was that he finished his chest workouts with dumbell flyes, an
exercise that emphasizes the stretched position of the pectoral muscles. He
would pump his chest up full of blood during the workout then do flyes, holding
the stretch at the bottom of the flye. This gave his chest room to grow to
amazing proportions.
Fascial stretching is more rigorous than regular stretching but the results can
be amazing. When you stretch hard enough to cause the fascia to expand, you
will really feel it! When you are stretching the fascia, you should feel a
powerful pulling sensation and pressure as the muscle works against the fascia
to expand it.
Be sure you do not stretch so hard that you cause the muscle to tear or cause
injury to yourself. You will rapidly learn to distinguish the difference
between a good stretch and a bad stretch. You should not feel any sharp pain,
just a steady pull.
Hold each stretch for at least 20 to 30 seconds as you must give your fascia
time to be affected by the stretch. Stretch hard like this only when you have a
fully pumped muscle as you must give your fascia a reason to expand. If your
muscles aren't pumped, just stretch normally.
You can find instructions for stretching at:
http://www.fitstep.com/Library/Info/Stretching1.htm
One set of hard stretching after each set you do for a muscle group, besides the
obvious benefits of increased flexibility, can have an incredible effect on the
size of your muscles and their further ability to grow.
About The Author
Nick
Nilsson is Vice President of BetterU, Inc., an online exercise,
fitness, and personal training company. Check out his latest eBook
"The Best Exercises You've Never Heard Of" at http://www.thebestexercises.com
or visit http://www.fitstep.com.
You can contact him at betteru@fitstep.com
or subscribe to BetterU News, his fitness newsletter at betterunews@fitstep.com.
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