Does Strength Training Make You Tight?
2 min read
So many patients we work with ask: will strength training make me less flexible?
We prescribe strength training programs to all of our runners because the benefits are clear, however, many runners come to us admitting that they intentionally limit their strength training due to the common misconception that strength training makes you tight. To answer the question, heavy strength training can explain your feelings of tightness in the short term (0-72 hours), however, in the long term heavy strength training actually improves your ability to lengthen/stretch tissues like muscle.
Keep reading to see strength exercise variations we use with our clients to increase flexibility and range of motion.
Why this is important?
An inability to lengthen the tissues surrounding your muscles, bones, and joints is one of the most common precursors to performance decline and injuries in our patients. It is important to understand that certain types of strength training will actually make you more flexible since your muscles are literally stretching while under heavy load.
Understanding muscle contractions
Research has shown that strength training, particularly eccentric strengthening, increases the ability of your tissues to lengthen overtime. Examples of eccentric strengthening include any exercise in which a muscle is being lengthened: lowering your arm during a biceps curl eccentrically loads your bicep, lowering into a squat eccentrically loads your quads and glutes, lowering from a calf raise eccentrically loads your calves, etc.
Strength training vs static stretching, which is better?
Now that we know strength training effectively stretches your muscles, let's compare the effects of heavy eccentric training to static stretching exercises, such as touching your toes and holding it for 30-60 seconds. Research has found that static stretching results in no change in the lengthening capabilities of connective tissue (muscles and tendons). Rather, the increased feelings of flexibility following static stretching is likely due to tissue end range desensitization, or a transient decrease in pain perception, thus allowing you to stretch further before discomfort limits you.
Compare this to strength training, where your muscles are forced to lengthen while working against an external load only facilitates even more lengthening. There are so many examples to help you conceptualize this, but one that is useful is play-doh. If you increased the temperature of play-doh it would inevitably stretch further. Same concept with muscles, if you heat it up and then use external load to lengthen it, its bounds to lengthen and stretch more than it otherwise would by passively tugging on it.
Here are our favorite strength training variations we use with our patients for their flexibility:
Conclusion
Ultimately, using an external load (weights) to drive tissue length, or yield, & subsequent adaptations is more effective than passively stretching a muscle to your pain tolerance end range. Demonstrating the ability to lengthen tissues in order to reach certain positions and ranges of motion is a requisite to joint health and performance.
References
Nelson R. T. (2006). A Comparison of the Immediate Effects of Eccentric Training vs Static Stretch on Hamstring Flexibility in High School and College Athletes. North American journal of sports physical therapy : NAJSPT, 1(2), 56–61.
O'Sullivan K, McAuliffe S, DeBurca NThe effects of eccentric training on lower limb flexibility: a systematic reviewBritish Journal of Sports Medicine 2012;46:838-845.
