Flexibility training hurts

The essence of flexibility training that makes you cry is the result of "individual differences in pain thresholds, the adaptability of training methods, and the rationality of target needs. It is neither a "necessary hardship" that all trainers must endure, nor is it a completely unnecessary "hypocritical performance." Whether you should tolerate it and how to adjust it all depends on your own situation. There is no unified standard answer.

Last week, I saw this scene in the dance studio I often go to: a freshman girl signed up for soft lessons for the first time. When the cross was pressed to 15 centimeters, the teacher gently sat on her hip to help her sink. At first, she bit her lip and forced her back teeth to turn white, and the knuckles holding her practice socks were turned blue. Within 10 seconds, tears fell on the floor, and later she couldn't help crying. The veteran students next to her handing her papers were divided into two groups. One group patted her on the back and said, "It's okay. The first time I pressed her, I cried until I started to cry. It will be fine after a few times." The other group frowned and muttered, "This teacher is too cruel. There is no such thing as pressing. It hurts so much that it should have stopped long ago."

Let’s not talk about who is right and who is wrong. Let’s talk about why flexibility training hurts so much that we can’t help crying. It’s really not a squeamish thing. The physiological difference is sometimes much greater than you think. The Golgi tendon organs growing in our muscles and tendons are inherently sensitive to stretch stimulation. Once the stretch intensity exceeds the threshold, the stretch reflex is triggered to cause the muscles to contract to protect themselves, and feedback to the brain is a clear sense of pain. Moreover, everyone’s connective tissue density and pain threshold are naturally different. I have previously taught two students with no basic knowledge. One has a body fat rate of 18% and a high muscle mass. The first time he presses his legs to 120 degrees, he is so painful that he is sweating.

Precisely because individual differences are so great, there have always been two factions in the industry with their own opinions on the matter of "should flexibility training hurt to the point of crying?" and no one can convince the other.

Traditional professional dance and competitive sports circles basically believe that "pain is normal, and only when the threshold is exceeded can the performance be improved." After all, art candidates need to practice from a rigid ordinary person to being able to move their legs 180 degrees in half a year. Athletes need to increase joint mobility in a short period of time to achieve results, and slow static stretching simply cannot keep up with the progress. As long as the teacher is experienced enough and can accurately distinguish between "normal stretch pain" and "injury warning pain" and control the intensity and time, the effect will indeed be achieved after the pain is over. A teacher I know from the High School Affiliated to Beijing Dance University said that when his students first started training, half of the classroom cried when classes started. After three months of practice, almost no one cried anymore. It’s not that the pain is gone, but the pain threshold has gone up, and they know that this kind of pain is safe.

However, the sports rehabilitationists on the other side do not agree with "pain that makes you cry" at all. Their core logic is: as long as there is sharp pain or pain that makes you unable to control your expression, it means that the muscles have developed protective spasms, and will instead become tighter and tighter. In severe cases, it can cause ligament strains and avulsion fractures. , there are even cases of children who violently press their legs while practicing dance, resulting in spinal cord injury and paraplegia. Therefore, they recommend low-load methods such as PNF stretching and dynamic stretching. There will be a feeling of soreness at most during the whole process, and unbearable pain must not occur. If you cry after practicing, the method is 100% wrong.

I have been practicing sports performance-related content for five or six years, and have tried both methods. To be honest, there is no absolute right or wrong, it just depends on what you want. In order to practice Jiu-Jitsu's anti-locking hip opening technique, I followed a rehabilitation practitioner and practiced the PNF method for three months. Each time I pulled it for 2 minutes, I only felt swelling during the whole process. It was really comfortable. However, the crossbar was still 10 centimeters short and I couldn't lower it. Then I asked the teacher in the dance studio for help. I pressed it once, and the pain was really mind-boggling. As a person who rarely cries, I burst into tears on the spot. The students next to me laughed at me. But after the compression, I stood up and could do the splits directly on the ground. I was not injured afterwards, and my softness stabilized after a few days. But if you want me to recommend this practice to novice friends, I definitely don’t recommend it. If you don’t have a reliable teacher watching, it’s really easy to get into trouble by yourself.

Let me tell you something interesting. I asked a doctor of a national team before, and they said that they occasionally cry in pain while stretching athletes, but there are electromyography monitors nearby, and they will stop immediately when they see signs of muscle spasm, and they will not press blindly at all. To put it bluntly, crying in pain itself is not a problem. The problem is whether you can judge whether the pain is a "normal reaction to increase your strength" or an "early warning of injury", whether you actively choose to achieve your goal, or whether you are forced to carry it blindly.

So there is really no need to go up and say "you are too pretentious" or "the teacher is too violent" when you see someone crying while practicing flexibility. If someone is rushing to get into the dance academy, they will find a reliable and experienced teacher. If they cry in pain, that is the path they chose. After crying, they can wipe away the tears and continue practicing.； If you just want to practice yoga to improve your hunched back, or stretch your muscles to relax after exercise, you don't have to force yourself to compete with art candidates. It hurts so much that you shed tears and you end up injuring your waist, which is not worth the gain.

What suits you is right.