Why “Tight” Muscles Aren’t Always Short: The Truth About Running Flexibility (with JP Gloria)

Hello, welcome again everyone to the Movaia Running Podcast and again with me today is JP Gloria. How to introduce yourself? Physio, coach, YouTube celebrity? How do you phrase it?

All the above, maybe YouTube content creator, not celebrity, but yeah. I I’m a physical therapist, running coach and do education specifically for running.

Perfect, we are so glad to have you here and today we have a very interesting topic. mobility and flexibility, It’s a topic that to be honest, I might neglect. So let’s start by defining mobility. What is mobility? Is it the same as flexibility? Is there a difference? Does it matter for running?

Everyone defines it a little differently, But a better way to describe this would be, flexibility versus active mobility. So, flexibility is the ability to move the joint a certain range. However, it doesn’t mean that you can move it actively within that range. If you could move the hip a certain way, when you’re lying on a table, let’s say, but then you run and you see lack of hip extension or one side, you know, that’s differentiating. They have the flexibility, but they don’t quite move through that range.

One of the things I noticed is that a lot of people are very flexible. But then you see some really good runners that can’t do the splits. How flexible or how mobile do you actually have to be for running?

Not a lot. Actually in one of the studies some of the most efficient runners are the stiffest runners, I’ve worked with professional distance runners and they’re not that flexible. they have enough range to run which doesn’t require that much movement compared to let’s say something like dancing so you don’t really need that much range at all and some of them are the stiffest people and i guess that makes sense because we do want something called like stiff tendons as you’re able to store and release more energy but running, slower distances is very different to sprinting, where it does involve quite a bit of motion

So when we run, we don’t necessarily need a huge amount of flexibility. Yet sometimes we hear about, people not extending their hip enough, ankle mobility seems to be an issue sometimes. Can you talk us through some of the issues that you see.

⁓ a lot of people, complain about tightness, like limitations in mobility. my hip is really tight. I can’t quite move my hip that much. However, it’s important to differentiate the difference between tightness and actual muscle shortness. They’ve done research on this too where they’ve actually measured the muscle length and whether there you feel tightness or not, doesn’t actually impact the muscle length itself. So what is the person really dealing with? It’s not necessarily muscle shortness because they’ve tried to lengthen this muscle all the time through stretching, but it doesn’t work. But rather it might be more from just increased tone. Where does tone come from? It’s typically comes as signals coming to and from the connection between the body and the brain, right? And it usually comes from protection. So when someone comes with a form of, let’s say, man, I’m feeling a lot of tightness on the front of my right hip, I don’t necessarily think, the problem is because their hip flexor is short. But rather, think, well, why is it in a protective state? Why is the hip flexors going to protective the state? What is going on around that hip?

An interesting example would be if I’m working with a runner dealing with gluteal tendinopathy, some, also correlates with a trochanteric bursitis, which is they get pain on the side of that hip. And when they get the pain on the side of the hip, let’s say, we get a lot of tightness in that gluteal area. So then they’ll try to, stretch it. However, stretching, especially when it’s irritable, actually makes it worse because it’s putting more compressive forces on that greater trochanter or right on top of that bursa. So that’s a good example of where, a lot of runners feel tightness and they try to stretch all their pains away. But there are certain cases where it actually makes things worse.

How do you assess for this. How do you differentiate whether the tightness or the limitation comes from reduced muscle length, or whether it comes from pain protection response?

I’d say it’s the history. To truly have a muscle shorten, there has to be something pretty severe going, essentially we’re thinking about contractures. So if there’s prolonged immobility, I’m not just talking about sitting in a chair for eight hours. I’m talking about more so like, they’re bedridden for quite a while. We like to differentiate these things. We try to move it passively first, passively means that we move it and they relax when we move it. Because if you find restrictions at that point, that might suggest something that might not necessarily be the muscles because the muscles aren’t really engaged through the movement. Then we can test it actively. So have the person actually go through the range. And so now if we notice that, it wasn’t restricted passively, but now significantly restricted as they move it actively, There might be more from an active structure that is causing the limitations in, mobility. And then we’ve got to get to the… Yeah.

What an ⁓ active structure for a layman.

⁓ like, you know, like muscles, like if it’s coming from muscle.

So, okay, we have different types of root causes So, no matter what the root cause is, What are the typical mobility limitations that you see and how would they affect running?

Let’s give an example. So let’s say someone comes in, they complain of their front of the right hip being very tight. I remember actually one case where someone had that and actually they were coming to me you know before a marathon probably actually the week before a marathon I’ll say and they were having this tightness and we did notice that it was very tight in that front of the hip you could notice that increased tone it was definitely affecting the running as well where they weren’t getting as much hip extension so they’re able to like bring that hip back as the foot went behind them. and his thought was it was a hip flexor strain. Well, I tested him actively and he had no pain with any of that. Right? So now I’m trying to differentiate, well, why is this happening? And, the thing is, how can it be a hip flexor strain if I engage that muscle and it doesn’t hurt? It actually didn’t bother him at all. However, What did bother him wasn’t active engagement of that, of those hip flexors. It was actually just impact. So if I made him jump specifically, put him into single leg hopping, that would elicit the pain right in the front of the hip or right in his hip form. So when I consider that case, why was he having that right hip tightness? Well, I was concerned for something like a bone stress injury specifically around that right hip. ⁓ because it couldn’t tolerate impact very well. So in that case, I didn’t want him to run that. And I actually wanted him to do imaging for that hip. But again, this is why it’s hard because even though you notice a tightness, even though it’s protective, you still have to do a little bit of detective work to figure out what exactly is going on there. I think the point is that limited mobility, does give clues on what’s going on. why all of these details even though it’s not about muscle shortness, it’s still rather important to figure out what do we need to do to approach this problem so we can get him back to running again.

Would you mind, to actually demo, what does limited hip mobility actually look like in a running motion compared to a more normal running motion?

Yeah, I mean I could do at least the hip part. And we can talk about the other aspects as well. When we’re talking about it, typically with running, you land this initial contact, then we go toward that mid-stance phase, and then we go into that push-off phase, and then you switch. Now thing that you’ll notice specifically with this person when they do have the restrictions, one, I could move that hip, this is hip extension, when I was testing it on the table, when I had them laying down, I noticed that it was quite restricted. But also when I had him running, Typically the hip should go into almost like zero degrees like right into this this motion here should be closer to like, you know, Neutral zero degrees or maybe a little bit of hip extension, but for him how he was running He was you know, typically I’ll have someone running they’re running like this now him when he was running he was like full hunched over like this and running like that you know, That limited mobility does give me clues on what’s going on.

Do we have a similar example or the lower foot, calf ankle mobility.

I could give an example like ankle eversion or ankle pronation, it’s kind of that inward movement of the foot. we talk about that, that like collapse that happens when you’re running. There’s a lot of reason things that we could look at, but in terms of mobility, one of the tests that I do do for someone is going to be something like a lateral heel tap to really assess the ankles ability to move. So the idea of the lateral heel tap, know, hands on the hips, know, hips and shoulders square gently tap that heel down, very lightly, then come back up. Something along this. Now. It helps me understand hip stability. However, it also tells me a little bit about the ankle. Because what you’ll find with certain runners is, or certain injured runners at least, is when they go through this movement, it’s not completely square. I hope what ends up happening is maybe they start collapsing in like this. Like when they try to do it, their knee collapses in. And sure, that could be a function of building control and coordination of the hip to bring it to bring that knee in like that. However, it can also be affected by limited ankle mobility. Because if my ankle can’t actually go through ankle dorsiflexion, which looks like this, this type of motion here where I’m bending through, what you’ll have to do instead, if I don’t have this motion and I get stuck here, what you would end up doing to get more of that motion is your foot would have to get it by essentially coming inward so the knee can travel more so forward. So there’s a lot of interesting compensations. So something I consider again, when they go through this motion, I’m not just considering hip control and stability as they go through that motion, but I’m also considering if they have enough ankle range, because again, if they don’t have it, will also cause that collapse. So that’s a… example there.

For ankle range, I remember doing a long time ago this wall test, is that still a common assessment?

It’s a helpful screen. mean I’ll do this. Yeah when they’re here You know right here and then they bring the knee forward because if they don’t have that motion what they’ll do instead of coming through it like this What will happen is they’ll have lift the heel to get that motion and that is a sign of restriction around that ankle and if they have that It would not be a surprise to me is if they had that moment limited mobility that their knee would end up caving in quite a bit as they did the motion.

So that then begs the question, what to do? So if you have mobility issues, what’s the best way to go about it, conceptually?

It’s not about the symptoms but it’s really what is the thing that’s irritating the area the most, right? In the event of more so a calf strain, stretching the area can help, However, one of the more common injuries that happen specifically in high level sport is actually not necessarily calf strains, but Achilles tendinopathy, specifically insertional Achilles tendinopathy when a tendon attaches right at the heel. Now if we’re dealing with that, actually if we’re dealing with either of those things, whether it’s the tendon or the muscle, you’ll notice that they’ll complain of calf tightness and their calf might not actually be able to go through that much motion. However, while with a muscle strain, you could stretch it and that could be a part of the rehab process or one of your exercise that you would do to help reduce the tightness. Doing a calf stretch for something like an insertion achilles tendinopathy might actually irritate it further. So it’s really addressing the root issue, not necessarily the symptom of let’s say tightness or restricted range. I mean, sometimes the restricted range is the issue. But I’d say for more of the time, most of the endurance athletes I work with are dealing with less so mobility issues or joint restrictions, but rather overuse types of injuries.

If you do stretch when should you actually be stretching? Before you run after you run, can you use it as an excuse to stop mid-run?

I would say for stretching, depends how you’re stretching before or afterwards can be okay. But doing prolonged static holds for stretching before, let’s say a run. might not be that advantageous, it decreases performance it isn’t the most effective thing, but rather what you would rather want to do is, more dynamic stretches, which are, quick stretches you’re not holding it for thirty seconds you’re doing more like one to three second holds at end range that seems to be a little more helpful helps you warm up more appropriately for let’s say a run

Could this be like some A skips, B skips, those type of things?

Right. So, so, so a good example, right, is If I am doing something like, if I’m stretching out, let’s say my groin, right? Maybe I could go through the stretch and do like a hold there and really stretch out my groin, something along those lines or, you know, go into this position and then stretch that way. So this stretches the groin area. Typically before run, I wouldn’t necessarily want to incorporate long holds like this, but rather I would probably do something more dynamic, which you’ve seen a lot of runners do, which is gonna be like this one. So, you know, they’re bringing their leg out and they’re just moving a little bit more quickly as they go through the movement. The static holds, might be nice to incorporate after a run.

One thing that often comes up with mobility is eccentric loads. What’s the idea behind eccentric load on your muscle for mobility?

Yeah. Right. So You could improve mobility two ways. You could either do static stretching, which would be just like a hold, right? So you could do something like, you know, you take the hamstring, you just kind of hold it, you know, you lengthen it, feel a moderate stretch in that in the area, and then you just hold the position. Or you could do something more like an eccentric exercise, a good example would be, let’s say a Romanian deadlift. say you’re holding a weight and then you’re hinging back and coming forward like this. Because when you do something like this, you’ll also notice a stretch in the hamstring. Now, What I tend to do is I like to incorporate more of this type of exercise to address hamstring mobility, typically, unless they’re dealing with a strain. To keep this brief, both eccentric exercises like a Romanian deadlift, right? Along with a static stretch like this can both improve hamstring mobility. However, one really just works on the flexibility of the area. But the eccentric exercise will involve some muscle in the eccentric exercise. This type of movement would not only improve the mobility of the hamstring, but also the strength of it as well. And like I mentioned before, you know, with running, you need to also prepare for the demands of running as well.

if someone would have this type of injury, how often would they do this exercise? Like every day, two or three times a week, multiple times a day? What makes a difference there?

I keep it relatively simple. When I think of things like post-surgical type stuff, I’d want someone to be stretching like, three times a day. Maybe three sets of 30 to 60 second holds, you know, more at a moderate intensity, something along those lines. However, if we’re talking about eccentric exercises, and let’s say we’re actually doing strength training, right? Heavy strength training. I could sequence this in and it acts to both improve mobility but also acts as a strength exercise as well. And typically for runners if they’re in season or actively training for a race, typically I’d aim for probably two to three times a week.

⁓ what, what would be a… a realistic plan for most runners to maintain the mobility a level so it does not become a limiter when they’re running.

Well, I like to sneak it in there, right? The first one we talked about was the hip, right? now we’ve worked on the hip, feels a lot better. now it’s within a normal range. Well, what can we incorporate to maintain that? There’s multiple ways to do this, but very simple one would be doing something like a single leg bridge. That’s already working on the hip extension. Make sure you squeeze the glutes. So it’s all coming from the hip here. And then all you do is straighten out one leg and then we go into a single leg bridge. So now that’s working on the hip extension here, right? It’s maintaining that. while incorporating some form of gluteal exercise. So you see now we’ve worked on hip extension along with the glutes. Great. Now another example would be, restrictions with ankle mobility. Well, we can go back to that heel tap that I mentioned. But if you look at it from the side, you’ll notice that it takes me through ankle motion. You really don’t need much of that. I mean, this is more than enough really to get you through, but it is needed because if you think about running, right, you land and then you get into this position here, you do technically need knee over toe type mobility. If we think about the knee, you really don’t need much motion. It really only goes through like 30 degrees. And you never really go into full extension either. It’s usually slightly bent even at the end range here. It’s not, it doesn’t look like this. It’s more like this, this type of position. I’m just moving my legs so you could see my knee, but it doesn’t bend that much. So usually that’s not an issue. Torso mobility does matter as well. When people are injured, they tend to stiffen up at the upper body or when they have back pain and stuff, they’re really stiff up here. So you can see them from the front, you know, they’re not moving anything up here. It’s very stiff and rigid, but I would want them to be able to, naturally rotate side to side. I have some footage on this, you know, front views of plenty of the top runners and you could see that really nice rotation that happens as they run.

What would be a ⁓ reason for limited mobility in the upper body there?

A lot of things. sometimes if you’ve dealt with a lot of pain, they’ll be stiff there There’s that back pain, I mean any type of pain around the back, thoracic spine, neck, some people just think about way too many things, whether it’s about running or just something else. You just need to relax a little bit when they run. But I will say sometimes the upper body does affect what happens at the lower body. I remember looking at this younger athlete I was watching him from the back and he had a lot of crossover going on. So as he’s running, his feet are kind of like crossing each other as he’s like running. I can’t do it in place. That’s kind of like awkward, but essentially it was looking something like that. as he was running. And his, his mom, she’s like, yeah, I keep telling him to widen out his feet when he runs because you know, if you widen out your feet, that’ll keep it from crossing over. I was watching him, and I was watching his torso, and it was just so stiff. she was complaining, talking about her son and saying, he needs to widen his feet. I keep telling him, but he doesn’t do it. But I think he just felt very awkward doing it, really. So what I had him do was I told him, hey, you know, first of all, take a deep breath, relax. And then I wanted him to just practice like letting his upper body rotate as he ran. And that actually fixed his running actually, because all of a sudden when he started rotating, you know, was able to counteract those rotational forces that coming from the leg and now his legs weren’t going all over the place as he was running. It already corrected itself just by having him move a little bit more through the upper body.

One area that you mentioned is tightness in the lower back. How does it manifest in running, if at all? And what do you do?

Tightness and lower back can happen from a lot of things. People, they don’t just run, right? They usually work, whether they have an office job or just sitting all the time or just stress or you’d end up like shoveling snow so you could get back pain from there However, what I have noticed specific quite a bit of times is that a lot of compensations can happen through the back as well. A good example of this would be, hip extension, which is you go through this, this range here, right? Now, in a sense, I’m trying to get all this motion through the hip, but you could also get that through the back. So Let’s say I restrict my motion and I’m stuck here, but I can still get the full extension if I do an anterior pelvic tilt, let’s say. And now I’m using my lumbar extensors to get that full hip extension. So I find that it’s very easy to compensate through things like that. That’s why I always take a look at the back. Even if your pain is in the ankle, I still look at the back anyway.

That’s a great point how these areas are connected.

And again, I mentioned that the foot can influence things happening at the knee and hip, but even at the upper body can influence things happening down at the legs and vice versa. So, they’re all very much related.

Yeah. We’ve covered a lot. We have to make a public service announcement, make sure for today’s podcast to also look at the video because there’s so many valuable demonstrations that you have given today. Before we wrap up, is there anything else on the topic of mobility where you think people need to hear this.

Just because you have muscle tightness doesn’t mean stretching will solve it. It might mean something might be going on in that area but you can’t stretch it away. That’s probably what I would leave you with.

Okay, that’s a good takeaway message. With that it’s a wrap for today. If you like what we did today, follow the Movaia Running Podcast. Search for Movaia, that’s M-O-V-A-I-A on YouTube or on Instagram. You can also go to movaia.com/ podcast, leave your questions there or leave us a video if you want us to talk about it. And JP, where can people find out more about you?

You could find me, JP space Gloria, GLO, RIA. You could search my name on YouTube or Instagram or whatever and I’ll pop up.

Because you’re celebrity. Thank you for listening and hear you next time.