Everyone should include three types of exercise in their training regimen: aerobic exercise, strength conditioning and flexibility. Increasing your flexibility can provide you with many benefits. Flexibility training can improve your posture and freedom of movement, increase your relaxation, reduce your risk of injury and release muscle tension and soreness. Overall, joint range of motion and muscle length benefit from flexibility training.
Structure
Joints are the point where two bones meet and consist of ligaments, tendons and cartilage. A ligament's function is to connect bone to bone. A tendon's function is to connect muscle to bone. The spongy material between bones is called cartilage. Synovial fluid helps to lubricate your joints. When you stretch, you are elongating the muscles and tendons at the joints. Muscles that have longer fibers have a greater range of motion than muscles with shorter fibers.
Measure of a Joint
The definition of joint flexibility includes the range of motion allowed at a joint. Determining a joint's range of motion is usually done by measuring the number of degrees from starting position to ending position -- at the end of the full range of movement. Passive and static stretches are usually used to assess joint range of motion. Muscles need to be in a relaxed position to perform passive stretches. Static stretching involves a slow, controlled, stretch that is maintained while being measured.
Long-Term Factors
Many long-term factors contribute to a joint's range of motion. A few of the long-term factors include age, gender, joint structure and activity level. As people ages their flexibility -- joint range of motion -- tends to decrease. This decrease is usually due to physical inactivity. Females tend to be more flexible than males due to anatomical differences in the joints. The extent of a person's range of motion also depends on the type of joint structure it is and the type of movement the joint performs. Improving your joints range of motion and muscle length can be as simple as adding regular physical activity.
Short-Term Factors
Many short-term factors contribute to a joint's range of motion, including body temperature, pregnancy and resistance training. As your body temperature increases, like during a warm-up, your joint range of motion and muscle length increase. During pregnancy, the hormone relaxin relaxes your pelvic joints and ligaments, allowing greater flexibility. Resistance training exercises, when done through a full range of motion, can also help improve joint range of motion.
