Name: Understanding Tension vs. Compression in Flexibility Training | Anatomy Lab
Uploaded: 2025-03-08T20:40:41.000Z
Duration: 6 min 45 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Have you ever wondered why, no matter how much you stretch or train, something always seems to stop you from reaching that deeper range of motion?

This video is a direct follow-up to my last video on unlocking hip flexibility After that video, the most common question in the comments was How can I tell if my movement is limited by muscle tension or if it's my bones?

Tension is the stretch you feel in your muscles, ligaments, tendons, fascia when they are lengthening Picture this, you're reaching for your toes in a forward bend and you feel that tightness in the back of your legs That's tension It's caused by your muscles being pulled as they lengthen to their limit The good news is, tension can often be improved with consistent stretching and flexibility training Over time, your muscles can become more elastic and your nervous system will feel more comfortable in these positions allowing your body to let the movement happen However, if you stretch regularly, you may eventually reach a point where you feel stuck and no amount of stretching seems to help you move any further or deeper This can often be due to bone compression rather than muscle tension This brings us to our second concept, bone compression This happens when bones come into contact, creating a hard stop It's a structural limit, something set by your individual anatomy that no amount of stretching will overcome And here's a simple way to feel it for yourself Let's use your elbow as an example Try bending your elbow as much as you can You'll notice that there's a point where it just won't bend any further, no matter what you do That's because the bones of your forearm and upper arm are colliding, creating compression Take a moment to really get a feeling for that hard stop It's a very distinct sensation that your bones are setting a limit Well, now you may ask yourself, how can I know what is what?

Well, here's a rule of thumb to help you distinguish between tension and compression Compression usually happens on the opposite side of the stretch For example, if you are bending forward to stretch your hamstrings, but feel a hard stop in the front of your hip joint That's likely compression It's a very simple way to tell whether you're dealing with muscle tension or bone compression With this rule in mind, let's experiment on how this feels in different parts of the body First, let's explore a backbend As you lean backwards, you feel tension in the front of your body, your abdomen and hip flexors But if you continue bending further, you'll eventually feel a hard stop in the backside of your spine where the spinous tips of the vertebrae are coming into contact The spinous processes are those little bony tips on your spine and their length and thickness can both affect how far you can bend backwards Shorter or thinner spinous processes allow for more movement, while longer or thicker ones create an earlier hard stop What's interesting is that this variation in length and thickness can occur throughout the spine So for some people, compression may happen in the lower back, while others feel it higher up or in the mid-back or even in the neck Take a moment again to try this for yourself and notice where in your spine you feel compression first Is it your lower back, your mid-back or somewhere else?

This is your unique bone structure determining the limit of your backbend Now that we've seen how compression works in the spine, let's move on to a different kind of stretch For example, a wall stretch Lie on your back with your legs up against the wall as if you were making a split As you let your legs open out to the side, you'll feel tension in the muscles of the inside of your legs Particularly the adductors But if you feel a hard stop on the outside of your hips where the femur meets the pelvis, that's compression Also pay attention whether you feel any differences between the right and left side It's common for people to have subtle differences in muscle tension or bone shape If you only feel the stretch in your adductors and not compression, that's again perfectly fine It just means you haven't hit your bone limit yet and you have potential for stretching Try this exercise and notice what you feel, especially when comparing the left and right side Lastly, let's try hip flexion with a bent knee Try pulling your knee towards your chest with your leg bent In this position, you'll probably feel more tension in the back of your hip or glutes But as you keep pulling your knee closer, you will eventually reach a point where your movement stops due to compression This is where the head of the femur meets the pelvis Just like with the wall stretch, compare the right and left sides There may be differences in how each side feels One side might reach compression before the other Take some time to play around with the position of your femur and notice where the restriction is coming from If you don't encounter compression, that means you haven't reached your bone limit yet and you have more room to stretch If you do feel compression, don't be discouraged It's your body's way of showing you your limits and understanding this will help you to move more safely and effectively in your practice Remember, whether it's tension or compression, learning to feel the difference will help you to stop fighting against your body and start working with it Before we wrap up for today, I want to give credit where credit is due This knowledge about tension and compression wasn't discovered by me It was pioneered by Paul Grilly, who's a yin yoga teacher and a master of his art If you are interested in learning more, I highly recommend checking out his website He has a lot of images of human bones that will show you exactly what we are talking about today And it will give you an even clearer understanding of these concepts I want to thank you for your time today and I hope you enjoyed this video and you will benefit from it If you have any questions, feel free to leave them in the comments You can support the channel by subscribing or sharing or liking And of course, if you want to, follow me on Instagram or check out my store Until next time, here in the Anatomy Lab Anatomy of the Body

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Understanding Tension vs. Compression in Flexibility Training | Anatomy Lab

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