Understanding Muscle Dysfunction & Enhancing Mobility

all right everybody welcome back to the ultimate Flex the Shelley Flex Athletics free flexibility strength balance and body awareness course I'm Shelly Airy and through my online handstand flexibility and contortion coaching program Flex Ed I help people to do amazing things that they never thought they'd be able to do I created this one-of-a-kind training in order to help you kick start your flexibility and handstand Journey this course also serves as an opportunity to get a taste of my coaching Style no strings attached and hopefully set the stage for us to work together in the near

future and even if we don't this course is yours to keep to continue to practice consistently and hopefully open your eyes to the things your body needs and incredible Feats that it has the potential to reach in the last video we went over how improving your stability plays a vital role in preventing injury and improving your overall range of motion in this video we're going to take a closer look at dysfunction within the muscle called trigger points what they are how they impact our movement and how to address them as we had discussed in earlier

videos when your body is unstable or at risk of injury it will recruit other muscles to provide stability or even limit your range of motion causing them to contract and restrict movement often the signals from your brain to and from your muscle will get stuck in this Loop even when the threat of injury is no longer there so what we're going to do is first interrupt that signal and basically reset the muscle using a technique called myofascial release it is important to note however that if instability or the perceived threat of injury still exists the

muscle can and most likely will tighten right back up that's why in Flex Ed we incorporate consistent core strength training so that you don't just experience temporary relief or results but that you actually resolve the underlying instability itself that will allow you to make drastic progress in your flexibility strength balance and body awareness it is also important to note that if a muscle is in this constant state of spasm not only will it not be able to lengthen to its full range of motion it also won't be able to fully contract the reason this is

so important to pay attention to is because when stretching we tend to focus our attention on the muscle that we're trying to stretch or lengthen but what is equally important is the performance of the muscles that are Contracting so let's take a moment to go over the difference between Agonist and antagonist muscles The Agonist muscle is the muscle that is Contracting and the antagonist muscle is the muscle that must lengthen and stretch in order to allow the opposite muscle to contract let's take a look at some of the positions we used for establishing our Baseline

when doing a forward fold the hamstrings are lengthening which means they are the antagonist muscle whereas the quadriceps are Contracting they are The Agonist muscle so when we are trying to assess what's limiting our range of motion it's important to note the different muscles that are being utilized and what roles they play for a pancake or straddle stretch we're engaging our glute Mead or abductors in order to open our legs which requires the groin or adductors to lengthen so again if you're feeling especially tight in your groin during your pancake stretch where you are feeling

the stretch doesn't automatically mean that the adductors are the problem lastly for the cat stretch where you're opening your shoulders you're lengthening in your lats and your chest but you're Contracting your deltoids so if you're feeling a lot of limitation in your overhead shoulder Mobility it could be due to tightness in your lats or your chest but it could also be due to a weakness or dysfunction in your deltoids as well in the next video we'll be really getting into the good stuff you'll be testing out different exercises and recording the results to determine the

impact that they have on improving your Mobility see you in the next video