Get Stronger by Stretching

The focus of this book is an exercise program which will teach you how to contract a specific muscle while lengthening it. This "eccentric contraction" (as explained in the book) will integrate the movement of a certain muscle with the surrounding joints and muscles in that area, in order to involve the whole body and to create harmonious movement. This program uses a Thera-Band ®, an elastic device that can prepare you for any activity.


The exercises in this book will help you learn how to initiate movement from the larger and stronger muscles within the center of the body, which creates efficient movement, and let it continue through to the smaller muscles in the extremities, which will result in more efficient and more delicate movement for expression.


The main goal is to create strength and length in your body equally, so that both qualities will support and balance each other. More than that, my vision is that your body will then integrate efficiency and harmony of movement. This is why I chose exercises involving muscle groups and integrating areas. By following the instructions described, you will learn how to initiate movement from a strong muscle in the center of your body (for example--psoas), and to include more muscles as the movement develops and expands.


How This Book is Organized


This book is divided into three chapters. Chapter 1 explains whole body movement. It contains discussions on stretching and strengthening, body alignment, and breathing. Chapter 2 is divided into muscle groups and areas, which will gain additional length and strength through proper attention and exercise using the body as a whole system.


The exercises will start from an easy level and build to a more difficult level by changing position of the body or by increasing the complexity of the exercise. Chapter 3 expresses my hope for what you, the reader, will have gained from doing the exercises in this book.


Body Alignment


Good alignment is crucial to maintaining good health. It provides the appropriate starting point for any movement or posture desired. Proper alignment will also eliminate unnecessary stress on muscles, tendons, bones, and joints; therefore, standing will be easier, breathing will be freer, and movement will be possible in any direction.


Body alignment is the habitual way in which we each maintain our own body placement. Personal body alignment can be acquire through:


a)imitation (i.e., baby watching parents),

b)use or misuse of the body of which you are unaware (i.e., sitting for hours in a chair), and/or

c)genetic defects (i.e., one leg longer than the other)..............

Personally I believe that one of the ways we are expressed in the world is in the posture and alignment we create through our life time. Our feelings, attitudes, and internal conversations about the outer world is one factor that creates our posture (heritage, repetitive movements, injuries, body structure and such, are the others). My goal is to give you the opportunity to view posture as dynamic, as transition from posture to posture that allows us to be alive in our body alignment. Alive-- meaning the awareness of who we choose to be mentally and spiritually that express itself in the physical body.