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published 10/10/08, updated 12/01/09

This woman is wasting about 85% of her time. Do you know why?

The Unstretchables

Ten major muscles you can’t stretch, no matter how hard you try

by Paul Ingraham, Vancouver, Canada MORE

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Credentials and qualifications

I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.

For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.

Stretching is over-rated!1 Stretching doesn’t reduce injury rates, and it can’t stop soreness after exercise (nothing does). It also isn’t a good “warm up” (there are much better ways to warm up). And not only is stretching much less effective at increasing flexibility than people think (it’s actually difficult and fairly dangerous), flexibility itself is also over-rated (being “inflexible” isn’t actually a problem for most people). And, although stretching does feel good, and can often take the edge off of muscle pain and stiffness … it never works any miracles or cures for muscle knots and myofascial pain syndrome.

There is considerable scientific controversy and mystery around some of these points, but there are just too many reasonable doubts to ignore: the science of stretching tends to underwhelm anyone who looks into it.

But perhaps the most under-reported problem with stretching is so straightforward — so practical and mechanical and logical in nature — that there can really be no controversy, no debate. To observe it is to know it. Not everything has to be established by a scientific study! Some things are just a matter of logic. Once it’s pointed out, you can’t go back — it will be forever obvious that a lot of important muscles simply can’t be stretched.

I call them “the unstretchables.”

But first, a bit about the strechables …

Many muscles are stretchable, of course

Perhaps the most “stretchable” muscle group in the body is the hamstrings group on the back of the thigh: the biceps femoris, and the entertainingly named “semis,” semitendinosus and semimembranosus.

We are built for hamstring stretching. Thanks to the arrangement of our parts, there is almost no limit to the amount of tensile force we can apply to the hamstrings — far, far more than they can actually take. If you wanted to, you could fairly easily tear your hamstring muscles. You could literally rip them apart. Wow.

There are a few other muscles like this in the body.

But precisely the opposite is true of several other muscles groups in the body. Just as anatomy just happens to allow full elongation of the hamstrings with convenient and powerful leverage applicable simply by leaning foward, there are numerous muscles that just happen not to allow full elongation and/or conveniently applicable and powerful leverage. There are several muscles that cannot even stretch, let alone tear, not matter how hard you try.

Thanks to the arrangement of our parts, there is almost no limit to the amount of tensile force we can apply to the hamstrings — far, far more than they can actually take.

Biomechanical destiny — how normal anatomy can completely block a stretch

The most straightforward example of an un-stretchable muscle is the thick shin muscle. Yes, your shin has a muscle — the tibialis anterior (the meat in the meaty part of the shin).

The tibialis anterior muscle lifts the foot. It is elongated by pointing the toe like a ballerina, technically called “plantarflexion” of the tibiocalcaneal (ankle) joint. However, the ankle joint only goes so far in that direction — it’s range of motion is strictly limited by the shape and arrangement of the ankle bones. There’s minimal variation in this limit from person to person — even a Cirque du Soleil contortionist can only plantarflex so much.

Short of breaking your ankle, there is no way to plantarflex enough to stretch your tibialis anterior.

At maximum plantarflexion, the tibialis anterior muscle is not really “stretched” — it is simply elongated. It is longer than it is when it is contracted, but it is not powerfully elongated. It cannot be stretched!

And what a damned shame, too, because the tibialis anterior muscle could probably use a good stretching. It is often stiff and painful, because it harbours one of the body’s classic trigger points — perfect spot for massage #3! — clinically significant in nearly every case of shin splints (regardless of which type of shin splints) and plantar fasciitis, two of the most common and annoying musculoskeletal problems in the world.

Tough luck. You can’t stretch your tibialis anterior. It’s biomechanical destiny.

9 more muscles you can stop trying to stretch

There are about 300 skeletal muscles in the human body. Sort of. It depends on how you count them.2

Many of them are unstretchable, but many of those don’t really matter much. Consider the humble coracobrachialis muscle — from a massage therapist’s perspective, it’s about as clinically ho hum as they come. A minor helper in shoulder flexion, overshadowed and overpowered by the famous biceps and the obscure but powerful brachialis muscles, the coracobrachialis is basically never clinically significant. Rarely injured in isolation, never even home to a terribly troublemaking trigger point, the coracobrachialis is not just unstretchable … no one cares to even try.

The Unstretchables — with a capital ‘U’ — are the ten muscles in the body that we can’t stretch but wish we could.

Some unstretchables are more unstretchable than others

Some of these muscles can, sort of, be stretched. But all of them are limited to a moderate intensity stretch at best (i.e. the gluteals), in most people, most of the time, using reasonably accessible methods.

Inevitably, some smarty-pants kinesiologist or therapist will be writing to me to complain about this list, claiming that they know how to stretch those muscles, and just because I don’t know my stuff I shouldn’t be yada yada yada. (This kind of reaction seems to be par for the course with the subject of stretching, which inspires bizarre emotions and strange loyalties in people.)

Inevitably, some smarty-pants kinesiologist or therapist will be writing to me to complain about this list.

So let me address that inevitable complaint about this list off right now and say, “Yes, but.” Yes, I’m sure there are miracle methods that can get a certain amount of stretch out of some of these muscles: but not much, and not easily.

If you have an urge to bitterly complain about my list, start by suppressing it, and then consider the possibility that you are taking this way too seriously. To quibble over the individual muscles and stretches is to miss the point. Which is …

Clinical implications of muscles you can’t stretch

The unstretchables are a problem for stretching. But what about the almost unstretchables?

For every more or less completely unstretchable muscle in the body, there are half dozen more than are rather awkward to stretch. Thus, stretching as a self-treatment suffers from a major practical limitation, and can really only be used with the handful of major muscles/groups that just happen to be conveniently stretchable.

We don’t stretch what we need to stretch … we stretch what we can stretch. Which isn’t all that much. The neck and low back. The hamstrings and calves. The tiny rectus femoris part of the quadriceps. The abdominals and iliopsoas. The pectoralis major. Some of these are indeed pleasant to stretch and may have therapeutic value. But there are just so many important muscles left out …

If muscles cannot be stretched due to straightforward mechanical limitations, then they are simply immune to all of the rest of scientific controversy about stretching. If a lot of important muscles can’t be stretched, then there’s a lot less point in debating the effects of stretching.

It’s just another thing that makes the stretching “debate” seem over-rated to me.

We don’t stretch what we need to stretch … we stretch what we can stretch.

Social implications of muscles you can’t stretch

Er … social implications?

Yep.

As noted earlier, the subject of stretching tends to get people a little bent out of shape, so to speak. I’ve never really understood why, but that’s how it is. Now that you understand the concept of “unstretchable” muscles, I have cursed you with a heavy burden of secret and unpopular knowledge, and you are on a idealogical collision course with devoted fans of pointless stretches.

For instance, let’s say you’re a runner (and a great many of my readers are). From now on, you’ll never, ever be able to “stretch” your quadriceps with other runners without wanting to say something about it. But just try it. You’ll find out what I mean. It gets awkward and weird, fast. People do not like their stretches to be criticized.

I’m so sorry I’ve done this to you. Good luck out there.

What’s the salamander about?

Further Reading

Other interesting reading:

• SY Quite a Stretch — Stretching research clearly shows that a stretching habit isn’t good for warmup, injury prevention, preventing or treating muscle soreness, enhancing athletic performance … or even flexibility!
• SY Stretching for Trigger Points — Is muscle knot release a good reason to stretch?

Notes

1. For more detail, see another article on SaveYourself.ca, Quite a Stretch: Stretching research clearly shows that a stretching habit isn’t good for warmup, injury prevention, preventing or treating muscle soreness, enhancing athletic performance … or even flexibility! Return to text.
2. See How Many Muscles? A (slightly tongue-in-cheek) tally of the body’s many muscles. Return to text.

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