the downside of flexibility
as i walk around today, i find i keep thinking about an article about stretching that i read yesterday in the health section of the ny times. apparently flexible people use considerably more energy to move than inflexible folks! which goes against all my notions about “efficient movement.”
according to a researcher who studied flexbility’s impact on performance:
…Distance runners do not benefit from being flexible, he found. The most efficient runners, those who exerted the least effort to maintain a pace, were the stiffest.
That study involved 100 people who were tested with 11 flexibility tests. Then they walked and ran while the researchers measured their efficiency. Those who were the most flexible expended 10 to 12 percent more energy to move at the same speed as compared with the least flexible.
i guess it does make some sense–the more flexible you are, the more of your body you’re actually moving, and therefore you’re using more energy–but it’s weird that there’s a penalty of sorts for being more fully in one’s body.
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No wonder it’s been hard for me to get back into running. I’ve been training for a 5K, and since I stopped running regularly a year and a half ago, my flexibility has increased quite a bit. Obviously, there are some other factors at play, such as generally being out of shape for such high impact exercise, but my movement does indeed feel less efficient.
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