# Numbness increases flexibility?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/numbness-increases-flexibility/460873>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 22, 2008, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/numbness-increases-flexibility/460873 "2008-08-22T00:10:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/numbness-increases-flexibility/460873/1 "2008-08-22T00:10:20Z")

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I was sitting in a particular position such that my legs fell asleep. When they recovered just enough so I could stand but they were still numb and pins and needly, I got the idea that stretching my hamstrings might make the feeling come back quicker. To my surprise, I was able to lift each leg in turn very high, about 90 degrees! Normally they are so tight that they don’t go above 45 degrees without a lot of effort or patience. When the numbness eventually went away, they became tight again.

I’m wondering what causes this phenomenon. My friend theorized I was able to do this because there was no “stretching pain”. But usually when I stretch, just the tension itself is an obstacle long before pain is.

Now I was under the impression that the tension in our muscles was an actual physical property of the muscles - that developing flexibility was a matter of gradually changing the structure of the muscles. But this event makes it seem like flexibility is just a matter of nerve impulses and if you took a muscle relaxant or were say hypnotized, you could be super flexible immediately without any long term training. What’s the scoop?

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**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2008, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/numbness-increases-flexibility/460873/2 "2008-08-22T00:11:30Z")

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[QUOTE=jackdavinci]  
But this event makes it seem like flexibility is just a matter of nerve impulses and if you took a muscle relaxant or were say hypnotized, you could be super flexible immediately without any long term training. What’s the scoop?  
[/QUOTE]

This is basically the case for healthy individuals. Your lack of flexibility is due to your nervous system’s inhibiting the motions.