Yes,
paying someone to help you stretch is actually a thing
by Shelley Levitt | June 9, 2019
Spin class on Monday
and Friday. Strength training on Wednesday. Saturday morning yoga. A weekend
run in the park. Now, where to fit in an hour at the stretch studio?
Just when you thought
you had all your workout bases covered, another fitness fad is making a claim
for a regular spot on your schedule.
Studios with names
like Stretch Zone,
Stretch Pro, StretchLab, Motion Stretch, and Stretch*D are opening up
across the country, offering one-on-one sessions with a “flexologist” who will
guide you into pretzel-like positions you never could achieve on your own.
The price of being
pushed and pulled runs from $40 or so for 25 to 30 minutes to $100 or more for
a full hour (with package discounts common).
The purported payoff:
unkinked muscles, boosted blood circulation, reduced pain and risk of injury,
greater mobility, improved posture, and, in general, a more chill disposition.
Before you sign on to
assisted stretching, here’s what you need to know.
Why stretch in the
first place
Kesh Hayashi, a
certified personal trainer who owns four Stretch Pro locations in Los Angeles,
one tucked inside his physical therapy clinic, sees stretching as the key
element of an essential weekly “recovery day.”
What we need to
recover from, he says, are rigorous workouts like Soul Cycle, boot camp
classes, and high-intensity
interval training (HIIT), which leave your muscles compressed,
shortened, and riddled with micro tears.
Then there’s what’s
been dubbed “text claw” and “text neck,” the stiff, strained, and sore fingers,
arms, and spine that come from the hours spent on digital tasks, head titled at
unnatural angles, shoulders hunched.
“If you want to
maintain a healthy, active life,” Hayashi says, “you have to reverse the effect
of what you do all day by opening everything up.”
The science behind
stretching
There is research
that supports the benefits of stretching
consistently, especially as you put more mileage on your
muscles.
A 2014 study in
the Journal of Exercise, Sports & Orthopedics, for example, found
that when older active adults followed a regular stretching regimen for one
year, their flexibility and muscle strength improved significantly.
In a 2009 study
that appeared in the journal Gerontology, this one of a small group of
women with an average age of 65, just 12 sessions of stretching exercises over
four weeks reversed age-related changes in their gait; the length and speed of
their strides resembled those of much younger adults.
Still, there’s
no consensus among experts on the best way to stretch.
A recent review
of studies published in the Journal of Aging concluded that while
flexibility training appears to offer older adults benefits like increased
range of motion, there’s no single “prescription” for the types of stretches to
do, how long to hold a stretch, and how many repetitions are ideal.
How old are you in
“stretch years”?
Even if the science
of stretching isn’t conclusive, you’ll hear some lofty claims about the
practice.
Hakika DuBose, or
Kika as everyone calls her, helped launch the trend of stretch-dedicated
studios in May 2011, when she rented 200 square feet of a real-estate office in
Montclair, N.J., and opened a space devoted to helping everyday people achieve
the grace of a professional dancer, which she was herself.
When
older active adults followed a regular stretching regimen for one year, their
flexibility and muscle strength improved significantly.
“When a dancer walks
into a room, it’s an experience,” DuBose says. “You can see right away that
they’re in tune with their body and their bodies are free of tension.”
She claims that after
a single 60–minute session at a Kika Stretch Studio you’ll lose “two-and-half inches of
tension.” In other words, after working with a Kika stretch coach—typically a
certified personal trainer, massage therapist, or dancer who’s been taught the
Kika method—you’ll be able to extend your fingers and toes farther than ever
before.
As your range of
motion increases, DuBose says, you become younger in “stretch years.” At one of
her two studios in New Jersey, an hour-long private session costs $85; at her
midtown Manhattan location, you’ll pay $120.
Putting a stretch
studio to the test
But here’s the thing
that’s beyond debate: stretch therapy feels great.
I can attest to that
from my own session with Hayashi at the Stretch Pro studio in a West Hollywood
shopping center. I was guided to a padded massage table in a large open room
where I reclined on my back while a belt was tightened across my body to keep
me stable.
Here’s the thing
that’s beyond debate: stretch therapy feels great.
During my 25-minute,
lower-body session (cost: $39), Hayashi moved me through a series of extensions
of my hamstrings and glutes, quads, and hip flexors, holding a stretch for five
seconds or so and repeating each a half-dozen times.
Hayashi urged me to
“let go and relax” and alert him when I’d reached seven or eight out of ten on
the “please stop” scale.
I left my session
feeling taller, energized, and eager to return.
When you should skip
a stretch
Still,
assisted-stretching has its limits. For one, it’s not a substitute for physical
therapy.
When I told Hayashi I
was recovering from a knee injury I’d suffered doing lunges during a fitness
class, he declined to offer any advice, noting “that would require a thorough
exam and a whole different protocol.”
Sadly, for me, that
means going back to those tedious rehabilitative lunges and side steps with a
resistance band around my thighs.
And paying someone to
stretch you isn’t your only route to better flexibility. If what you’re looking
for is a safe, down-to-earth stretching regimen that you can do on you own, you
can follow this simple program from the Mayo Clinic.
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