{"id":965,"date":"2016-07-31T03:04:33","date_gmt":"2016-07-31T03:04:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.aerialdancing.com\/blog\/?p=965"},"modified":"2016-07-31T03:06:00","modified_gmt":"2016-07-31T03:06:00","slug":"improve-your-lat-flexibility-safely-and-effectively","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.aerialdancing.com\/blog\/improve-your-lat-flexibility-safely-and-effectively\/","title":{"rendered":"Improve Your Lat Flexibility Safely and Effectively"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

This blog is a guest article from Jennifer Crane, PT, DPT, OCS, ATC. \u00a0<<—\u00a0Do you see all those titles?!\u00a0This girl knows her stuff.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
In this post, I\u2019ll talk about some common misconceptions I\u2019ve seen in the circus community regarding stretching in general. I\u2019ll also introduce a more comprehensive way we can improve lat flexibility safely and effectively, that also will help to prevent injuries.
\n\u200b
\nThere are a few different concepts we need to account for any time we want to improve flexibility of a muscle group. In broad terms, I\u2019ll refer to these as active flexibility, passive flexibility, and end range control. First, here are the working definitions of these terms for the purpose of this post:<\/div>\n
Passive flexibility: <\/strong>The total length a muscle can stretch when it is being pushed by an outside source. This could be gravity, like when you\u2019re sitting in over-splits, or it could be in contortion class when your instructor is cranking your leg into flat middle splits.<\/div>\n
\n
\n

\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Huge thanks to the maker of my flat middle splits, Catie Brier <3\u00a0<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n

Active flexibility: <\/strong>This is the ability of the muscle group that is opposite the muscle being stretched (the agonist muscles) to overpower gravity (WITHOUT assistance from an outside source) and move the limb as far as possible into the stretch. An example of this is doing a develope into an arabesque in contortion or dance- your glutes and posterior leg and trunk muscles have to do the work to move your leg into the highest arabesque position possible without assistance from your arms or your instructor.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n
\n

\"Picture\"<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
Sylphie Ariella: www.sylphieariella.com<\/em><\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\u200b<\/strong>End-range control:<\/strong> This is the ability of the muscles surrounding the muscle group being stretched to hold the limb at the end range of motion and do the fine-tuning adjustments that need to occur to either keep the limb at end range, or move it safely from one position to the other. \u00a0A great example of this is when you\u2019re working on side-scales. You first start by using your arm to hold your leg as high as possible, then when your leg is as high as it can go, you release your arm. Does your leg drop down a little? This means you may need to work on end-range control of your flexibility.<\/div>\n
\u200b
\nIn my experience both as a circus artist and as a circus PT, we are GREAT at working on passive flexibility. How many times do you get to class and immediately plop down into the splits? We really like passive static stretching\u2014it\u2019s something that is heavily ingrained in performing arts culture. While I don\u2019t think this inherently bad, I think we need to pay equal attention to the other components of flexibility. One of the biggest injury predictors in performing arts is a high ratio of passive-to-active flexibility. If your passive range of motion far exceeds your active range of motion, you are more likely to experience injury at that joint.Whenever I\u2019m working with a patient on improving flexibility, I always address each of these three components.\u00a0 When assigning corrective exercise programs or functional warm-ups, I usually have at least one exercise for each category, completed in the following order:<\/p>\n