PSR May 2025

Hey PS+R Crew!

PS+R is excited to launch our new websitewith full explanations of services, testimonials, and evolution over the past 3-years. 

Be sure to check it out!

Share the love! 

2024 finally brought us a google business page- we’d love for you to leave a review: https://g.page/r/CXZ2JA04uELUEAE/review

This month, we are excited to announce the arrival of Austin Cunningham PT, DPT!

We’re excited to welcome Austin to PS+R! He brings a solid background in elite strength and conditioning, with specialized expertise in overhead sports. As a former American football athlete, Austin further strengthens PS+R’s industry-leading expertise in high-performance sport.

Welcome to the PS+R Crew Austin!

This month, let’s get the record straight on stretching!

Are we supposed to stretch? Is my lack of stretching causing me to be injured? Should I stretch before or after my training sessions?

First off- this is not as simple of a question as you might think.  If you ask us this question, chances are, we hit you with some nuance- like, what do you feel like you need to stretch and why? Is stretching something you get relief from? 

Here’s why there is no simple answer to this question:

1. What tissue are you stretching? There are certain tissues in our body that don’t love to be stretched.  Tendons are a prime example.  Painful tendons—particularly when it’s the lateral hip, proximal hamstring, or achilles tendon— do not like to be compressed.  Stretching of these tendons can actually aggravate pain by compressing blood supply and neural structures within them that are nociceptive, or pain detecting.  Adaptive shortening of the muscle attached to those tendons may contribute to symptoms in the tendon, however, there are better ways of loading into those muscles to improve their capacity to lengthen as opposed to stretching alone. An example would be using isometric holds in lengthened positions of the muscle- positions that both the tendon and muscle will love resulting in reduced pain sensation and movement towards a state of improved capacity (in other words-healing!).
   
2. Are you stretching because the area feels tight when you hold a position for too long? If you are feeling tightness when sitting, standing or being at the computer too long, have you ever figured out why? Often times, our sensation of a tight muscle is a signal of an underlying problem with the neuromuscular control in a regional area of the body.  For example, if we have a mobile hip structure or an extra mobile lower back segment from years of extension based sports like gymnastics or heavy lifting, our body often needs input into those mobile areas to feel good and offset the stretchiness in the surrounding ligaments that occurs when we hold static positions for a sustained period of time. Mobility work that incorporates neuromuscular control helps us to balance neuromuscular input into that mobile region and relieves the sensation of tightness without simply stretching the mobile structure or stressed ligament- a practice which, at best, will only provide temporary relief.
   
3. Are you stretching for performance? Well, this one has been mostly debunked.  For most sports and activities, particularly explosive sports, we don’t want to perform static stretching prior to activity as it inhibits subsequent performance. The reason for this is that our tendons are elastic potential energy storage machines.  When we want to perform explosive dynamic movements, we want to prime those springy tendons with actions that slowly warm our metabolic engines and provide the nervous system input to prepare us for quick actions.  Think of it this way, if you had a metal spring in your hand, would it perform the same way after you deformed it by pulling on both ends for a sustained period of time?  The loss of elasticity in the spring is a usable analogy to consider when we think about the role of stretching in preparing us for dynamic, and especially ballistic, activity.  
   
4. Are you stretching to prevent injury?  This is also unlikely to be helpful.  A recent study of 325 novel runners were randomly divided into three groups- a static stretching group, a strength and neuromuscular group for the hip and core, and a group that performed strength and neuromuscular control exercises for the ankle and foot. These exercises took about 20-35 minutes twice a week and were progressed weekly for each of the two neuromuscular and strength groups. After the 24 week long introduction to running, the group that focusing on hip and core strengthening had less 52% lower prevalence of overuse injuries that the stretching group.  The hip and core program this study used can be found here: https://terveurheilija.fi/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/TheRunRCTHipAndCoreProgram.pdf and videos of the program here: https://www.youtube.com/@TheRUNRCTStudy/playlists

Struggling with tightness and stretching not helping? Give us a shout and let’s get to the root of it and find a better way to move forward.  

Looking for ways to prevent injury with your daily pre-and post-activity movement routine? Come on in for a performance evaluation and let’s figure out where we can improve your movement quality, strength or neuromuscular control to get you to peak fitness.

PS+R In The News | May 2025

PS+R Client Spotlight | Richard Seehausen

Richard is this month’s client spotlight.  Richard sustained a brutal ankle/foot dislocation that took him out of his profession as an outdoor cinematographer for mountain & ocean sports.  Following an initial performance evaluation, the PS+R team and Richard were able to establish a clear plan (mostly performed on his own outside of the clinic) to help Richards bridge this performance gap.  We are happy to report that he is back doing what he loves!  Well done Richard!

Thanks for staying connected with us! See you around!!