{"id":26585,"date":"2022-05-05T14:51:44","date_gmt":"2022-05-05T21:51:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/?p=26585"},"modified":"2022-05-05T14:51:45","modified_gmt":"2022-05-05T21:51:45","slug":"tight-stiff-muscles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/tight-stiff-muscles\/","title":{"rendered":"Tight & Stiff Muscles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cYou must be shapeless, formless, like water\u201d \u2013 Bruce Lee<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ahh to be \u201cshapeless\u201d, \u201cformless\u201d, I\u2019d feel so flexible. I hardly feel that way. My knees ache when I bend down (and get up!), I do a series of exercises just to tie my shoes, and things that I \u201cused to do\u201d all the time (in my 30\u2019s) are now how I \u201cover-do\u201d (in my 40\u2019s)! Ok, ok, it\u2019s not that bad, but I\u2019m not great as I once was\ud83d\ude09  Bruce is on to something, it\u2019s WATER that\u2019s missing. We can stretch like Gumby all day, but without water, you\u2019ll be left stiff, tight, and sore..<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Drench the muscles, while stretching the muscles\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Why is water so important?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A: 60% of your body is water, but where it is, is in your muscles (76%),<\/strong> and in a connective tissue, Fascia (70%)<\/strong>, that is primarily responsible for why you feel tight, sore, and can\u2019t move<\/strong> easily and freely. Fascia, is the casing around almost everything in your body, and when it\u2019s dehydrated, it starts to stick together, think of saran wrap all wrapped on itself, ain\u2019t nothing moving!\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: I thought you get tight because your muscles get short? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A: That\u2019s a big MYTH. Your muscles actually don\u2019t get tight, stiff, or short, they always have the same resting length it had before you felt tight. When you stretch, the muscle doesn\u2019t get longer, muscle length always stays the same<\/strong>. Your muscles are always nice and loose\u2026and long! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Then why do I feel tight, and I can\u2019t I touch my toes like a Yogi? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A: It\u2019s because your nervous system is protecting you.<\/strong> Your nervous system has more to do with your flexibility than anything. As you continue to move and take your body, slowly and cautiously, to new ranges of motion, you increase the tolerance of your nervous system \u2013 your body allows you to tolerate more of a stretch. (this is a whole subject called \u2013 stretch tolerance \u2013 we will discuss another time) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: What does water have to do with tightness and flexibility? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A: The role of Fascia is critical to understanding where tightness, stiffness, lack of mobility comes from. Each individual muscle and its tiny muscle fibers are encased in Fascia. Fascia is 70% water<\/strong>, when dehydrated, Fascia gets really sticky and sticks to what it\u2019s encasing<\/strong> (muscle and muscle fibers), and to itself (other muscles it\u2019s encasing), so now you have everything stuck together, nothing is moving. Everything feels really tight, and when you do move it, it hurts.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: How does water work with stretching?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A: Proper stretching<\/strong>, moving, massage, all these can help to break up and separate the Fascia layers<\/strong> so water can properly hydrate the areas. Note: Water has a difficult time to penetrate these Fascial layers when they stick together, so consuming large amounts of water can be ineffective, if you can physically separate these areas, through movement and stretching, you will allow water to absorb the tissue.<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: How much water should I drink?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A: My general rule is, take your body weight, divide by 2, take that number and drink that number of ounces of water.  I\u2019m 180lbs, I try to drink 90ounces per water<\/strong> each day. Shakes, drinks count (except coffee!). I drink 32ounce when I wake up, 16 ounces in my morning shake, 32 ounces before 4pm, and then 12-14ounces in my shake before bed. To me, hydration is more important before my workouts<\/strong> than after (although I do both). Water is the true SuperFood, nothing compares. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Q: Parting thoughts?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A: My dad is 82yrs old, older people really need to focus on drinking water. As we age, we lose water quicker, we lose our sense of thirst, and our bladder\/lifestyle can keep us from drinking a lot. Age related weakness is due more to the loss of muscle quality than muscle mass, that\u2019s a water problem. Dehydration thickens the blood, which makes it harder for the heart to pump, which reduces blood flow, which makes muscles tight, sore, stiff, which reduces movement, which then reduces quality of life\u2026and we know what happens next…stay hydrated, drink electrolytes, and keep moving!<\/strong> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cYou must be shapeless, formless, like water\u201d \u2013 Bruce Lee Ahh to be \u201cshapeless\u201d, \u201cformless\u201d, I\u2019d feel so flexible. I hardly feel that way. My knees ache when I bend down (and get up!), I do a series of exercises just to tie my shoes, and things that I \u201cused to do\u201d all the time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26589,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[179,180,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26585","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cbd-101","category-higher-education","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26585","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26585"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26585\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26589"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26585"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26585"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.proze.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26585"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}