How Stretching Can Explode Your Muscle
Growth
Not only is
stretching important for flexibility, it is
CRITICAL for massive, rapid
muscle growth.
By
Nick Nilsson
When you think
aboutgaining
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!
Click to discover how to develop lean muscles
quickly
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.
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.
Nick Nilsson is Vice-President of BetterU,
Inc., an internet-based personal training company. He has been
training for more than 14 years and has been a personal trainer
for more than 8 years. He is the author of the training eBooks
"The Best Exercises
You've Never Heard Of", "Gluteus to the
Maximus" and
"Specialization
Training
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