Flexibility (anatomy)
Flexibility in anatomy refers to the body's capacity to achieve a specific range of motion at its joints, which is influenced by both physical and mental factors. It encompasses the study of how the body's structure and capabilities allow for dynamic movement and adaptation, particularly in response to physical exertion and resistance. With growing interest in disciplines such as martial arts and yoga, flexibility training has gained popularity, leading to the development of various programs aimed at enhancing flexibility safely and effectively.
Despite often being overlooked compared to other forms of physical training, flexibility plays a crucial role in improving athletic performance and daily activities. It involves the cooperation of the mind and body to maintain control and efficient breathing while executing movements. Flexibility is assessed in three ways: static flexibility, which focuses on the muscles’ ability to elongate and return; active flexibility, which pertains to joint performance during movement; and dynamic flexibility, which incorporates momentum to expand a joint's range of motion.
Factors such as age, gender, lifestyle, and previous injuries can affect an individual’s flexibility, making it a highly personal attribute. Importantly, flexibility benefits everyone, from athletes to individuals seeking to improve their overall well-being, by helping to reduce stress, prevent injury, and enhance daily functional movements.
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Flexibility (anatomy)
In anatomy, flexibility is the study of the body and its architecture and capabilities. Flexibility refers to the complex dynamic that permits a joint in the body to achieve a specific range of motion. The science of flexibility explores the body’s limberness, how it performs when asked to work against its own resistance. In the wake of the cultural fascination with martial arts, yoga, and other forms of meditational exercise, interest in flexibility has widely increased, and now training programs that stress the most efficient (and safest) ways to work on the body’s flexibility are readily available on the Internet and in schools and community gyms. But flexibility is far more than physical exercise. Kinesiology studies have regularly shown that working on the body’s flexibility—often no more than periodic but regular stretching or bending or even directed breathing—positively impacts a person’s mental outlook and emotional well-being. Businesses have begun to recognize the relationship between flexibility and mental acuity, and thus the ability to work a full workday, and have begun to offer brief, informal flexibility sessions during the workday itself to improve productivity and to elevate morale.
Background
Although among athletes, other types of physical exercise and training—such as building body mass through weight training or improving cardiovascular endurance by walking or running—routinely receive far more attention, flexibility training dramatically improves the body’s ability to engage in sports and, other activities. Because flexibility training is often mistaken for the basic stretching and warm-up routines people engage before lifting weights or jogging, flexibility remains the most under-regarded element of a healthy lifestyle. To build flexibility requires a cooperation of mind and body as the body is asked to maintain precise and controlled movements while maintaining efficient breathing. By controlling and directing the body in such a way, a person increases their ability to address the demands of other more dynamic athletic endeavors without risk of injury. Flexibility has come to be considered an important lifestyle option for virtually any person, any age: athletes, amateur athletes, and a person simply interested in maintaining basic activities cycles in their daily lives—such as picking things up and climbing stairs—and combatting the debilitating effects of stress, worry, and aging itself.
The body and its ability to move is structured on the systemic operation and cooperation of ten joint areas, that is those critical junctures where parts of the body come together joined by ligatures, tendons, and muscle: the neck, the shoulders, the elbows, the lumbar (lower back), the hips, the waist, the wrists, the knees, and the ankles.
The appropriate range of motion differs juncture to juncture—the lower back, for instance, does not have the need for the range of motion that the elbow has; the shoulder is more elastic than the wrist. In addition, there is no standard or even ideal range of motion. The body’s general flexibility depends on a variety of factors that differ from person to person, including age, gender, weight, lifestyle choices, genetics, height, and previous injury. Even the temperature in the room where a person trains impacts the body’s ability to respond. Generally, women are more flexible than men and younger people are more flexible than older people. Because there is no ideal, before engaging in any flexibility training, people are asked to evaluate their lifestyle and determine exactly what a necessary range of motion is. Regardless, everybody can benefit from flexibility training. Each person engaged in flexibility training must then determine what range of motion is required to conduct their day-to-day life without fatigue, injury, persistent pain, or stress.
Flexibility is measured three ways. First, there is static, or passive, flexibility in which the muscles elongate and return to an original position without forward or backward motion. Bending to the toes, doing a leg split, going from a seated position to resting the head and shoulders forward to the floor—these are examples of static flexibility. They involve tight and precise muscle control as well as compensatory breathing. Active flexibility refers joint performance when the body is engaged in particular motions—that motion can be relatively simple (walking or picking up something) to complex and aggressive (most sports). Finally, dynamic flexibility, the most complex measure of the body’s motion, includes specific and precise movements that use momentum as a way to actually expand a joint’s range of motion. Over time, gradually increases, thus improving the body’s ability to perform.
Bibliography
Alter, M. Science of Flexibility. 3rd ed. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2004. Print.
Blahnik, Jay. Full-Body Flexibility. 2nd ed. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2010. Print.
Cooley, Bob. The Genius of Flexibility: The Smart Way to Stretch and Strengthen Your Body. New York: Touchstone, 2005. Print.
Cooley, Bob. Resistance Flexibility. Longboat Key: Telemachus, 2016. Print.
Kim, Sang H. Ultimate Flexibility: A Complete Guide to Stretching for Martial Arts. San Francisco: Turtle, 2004. Print.
Nelson, A. Stretching Anatomy. 2nd ed. Champaign: Human Kinetics, 2013. Print.
Walker, Brad. The Anatomy of Stretching. 2nd ed. Berkeley: North Atlantic, 2011. Print.