A muscle contains a lot of muscle fibers, and in fact the stretching itself depends on how many muscle fibers will be stretched. Some muscle fibers move first to stretch, and only in the further phase of the movement do the others turn on. Stretching will allow to maintain the correct relationship between the fibers, reduce the possibility of sticking together and the formation of adhesions during inactivity, after injury, etc.
There are two key structures within our muscles called proprioceptors. There are more of them in the body, but these two will be key to our topic of stretching. Proprioceptors are structures, or receptors, that are located inside the muscular body and help it detect certain changes during movement. Given that we are dealing with PNF stretching, which is an abbreviation of “proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation”, the importance of proprioceptors is more than clear.
One of them is called the “neuromuscular spindle” and is located inside the muscle body itself. This structure is there to register the change in muscle length as well as the speed at which it occurs. If the muscle fibers suddenly overstretch, this structure will send information to our nervous system that the muscle needs protection from overstretching, and the command will be to abruptly shorten and protect the muscle. That is why the speed of stretching is important. If we do it suddenly, the effect will be the opposite, instead of relaxation, there will be a creation of tension, because our body is brilliantly formed to protect us. Also, this structure is there to constantly adjust the length and tension of the muscles to be in an adequate ratio even at rest.
The second proprioceptor is called the “Golgi tendon organ” and by its name it says that it is located at the junction between the tendon and the muscle and it is there to register the amount of tension. When a muscle lengthens, the length of its tendon decreases, and vice versa, so this receptor will register the amount of tension at that joint, and regulate it so that there is not too much of it and that there is no injury.
Pnf Stretch
PNF stretching acts on these structures in order to adjust their function so as to allow the muscle to stretch a little more, without the possibility of injury. Of course, that is why it is very important to perform this technique correctly so as not to cause completely wrong effects and injury to the musculo-tendon tissue.
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