Neural Stretching?

[Alex Hughes]

Hi guys.

Does anyone know anything about nueral stretching or have some decent links to it on the web?

Is is a legit technique?

Alex.

[Scott Sonnon]

"Stretching" is either neural, or it's connective tissue deformative. Read: http://www.circularstrengthmag.com/36/sonnon.html

[Alex Hughes]

Good article.

Perhaps I should explain the problem a bit better.

I drive a truck for a living and my hips and legs are amazingly stiff, almost all the time. Also my left leg is significantly stronger than my right in some activities. I believe this is due to both skateboarding and working the monster clutch of my previous vehicle. My range of motion is however, fairly good and I engage in WW most days.

My general level of muscular flexibility is quite limited so for several weeks I've been working on some of the techniques found in "Stretching Sceintifically" by Kurtz. What prompted this question was the following.

1/ If I do the normal hamstring stretch, i.e. both feet pointed forwards, one leg raised, and a square hip I get a pain I wouldn't ususally associate with stretching, or for that matter anything else. It feels like someone is stabbing with a very long blade running from my just below my knee to halfway up my thigh. If I leave my legs where they are and roll my head forward the pain increases behind the knees and extends to the buttock of my raised leg. If I roll my head back to an upright position the pain subsides in my knee and disappears from my buttock. I can't ever raise my leg far enough to stretch the muscle at all.

2/ By twisting my supporting foot to a 45 or so angle, and likewise with my hips, I can raise my leg so that the angle between my legs is well over 90 degrees and I can bend forward enough to grab my toes. When performing the hamstring stretch in this manner the pain is not present at all.

I was mentioning this to a friend who is a fitness coach and he suggested reading up on nueral stretching which would appear to be an attempt to stretch the nerves. Apparently you achieve this by performing the hamstring stretch until the "nerve" pain begins and holding it for no longer than 2-3 seconds.

I couldn't find any info on this technique anywhere, which always makes me suss, so I thought I'd go fishing for opinions here, where people seem to be pretty widely read and fairly knowlegable.

Alex.

[Jarlo Ilano]

Alex,

Neural mobilization is a therapeutic technique. Popularized by David Butler out of Australia.

www.noigroup.com is a site you can check out.

The technique you describe is often called "Flossing". It is not so much a nerve stretch as mobilising the nerve within the sheath and dura.

Hope that helps.