A couple months ago I started working on stretching my hamstrings because they were tight.
So I did stretches for a few weeks, saw improvement, but quit because I pushed myself too hard and hurt my knee.
Recently I decided to start again and saw my hamstrings have the same level of flexibility they had when I quit a few months ago. They didn’t revert to. The level of tightness they had before I began stretching, they still had the mobility and flexibility I’d gained from stretching a few months ago.
So if you work at it and stretch a muscle by a few inches, how long does it stay that way? 6 months? A year? Does anyone know or does it vary?
Muscle strength can fade after a week of no use, use it or lose it.
tendon shrinkage takes longer , unless its due to injury. If you do a bit of a work out and strain a tendon, then it might be that if you rest while it repairs then its shrunk…
Oops, I meant, tendon stretching lasts longer…
But the workouts, strain, pulled tendon, torn muscle thing may mean that there is a repair process where the connective tissue repairs and grows too tight… So its complicated to know when to restart exercise after an injury.
My question is more about stretching a muscle and how long it stays that way before it tightens again.
I stretched my hamstrings over the course of a week or two a few months ago, assume I managed to stretch them by an inch or two (I am able to lean over further than I was in the past). How long will my hamstrings remain elongated before they shrink again assuming I stop stretching them?
unless you tear them I don’t think they are going to actually get any longer. Note that static stretching, particularly of cold muscles, has been shown to not be very good for you. It increases your risk of injury and can permanently damage your tendons and ligaments. Instead, people suggest trying to slowly move joints through their full range of motion during cool-downs from exercise. Most feelings of tightness are due to habitually performing exercises that don’t work the joints through their full range of motion or are due to minor injuries to the muscles.
I don’t think that is accurate though. People who do yoga end up far more limber than they were before they started. As I said in my OP, I am able to do stretches involving my hamstrings that are more limber than I could do before I started.
I am under the impression that doing a stretching protocol can permanently lengthen your muscles, however I do not know how long they stay that way before they shorten up again.
At the very least, where does the increase in flexibility come from from doing stretches? Is it from the muscles, tendons or something else?
When a muscle is stretched, some of its fibers lengthen, but other fibers may remain at rest. The current length of the entire muscle depends upon the number of stretched fibers (similar to the way that the total strength of a contracting muscle depends on the number of recruited fibers contracting). Efforts to increase flexibility should be directed at the muscle’s fascia. This is because it has the most elastic tissue, and because ligaments and tendons (since they have less elastic tissue) are not intended to stretched very much at all. Overstretching them may weaken the joint’s integrity and cause destabilization (which increases the risk of injury).
When connective tissue is overused, the tissue becomes fatigued and may tear, which also limits flexibility. When connective tissue is unused or under used, it provides significant resistance and limits flexibility. The elastin begins to fray and loses some of its elasticity, and the collagen increases in stiffness and in density. Aging has some of the same effects on connective tissue that lack of use has
(STRETCHING AND FLEXIBILITY - Physiology of Stretching)