What Is Your Injury Potential?

By now we all know that stretching does NOT prevent injury, right? Great! Now we would like to show you a simple test so you can see how stretching can actually increase your injury potential.

But first, it's important to understand the different types of RANGE OF MOTION(R.O.M.):

• Active range of motion (A.R.O.M. - Good) is how far you can move a joint or limb by yourself using only the agonist muscles of that joint.

• Passive range of motion (P.R.O.M. - Bad) is how far you can move a joint or a limb using any other outside force. (i.e. your partner shoving your foot in your ear, or gravity acting as an outside force when you flop into a stretch.) Inertia also acts as an outside force when you fling your leg up into a stretch.

• Uncontrolled range of motion (U.R.O.M. - Ugly!) is the distance between your A.R.O.M. and your P.R.O.M.

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THE TEST!

So here is how to find the increased potential created by stretching:

You will be measuring the range between your A.R.O.M. and your P.R.O.M. of a given joint. In this example we'll show how to test for uncontrolled R.O.M. of hip flexion, although the process is the same for any joint.

1. Lay on your back and lift your leg as far as you can with your knee locked straight (A.R.O.M.) and measure it.

2. Grab you leg and pull it toward your head, or have a partner push your leg to "stretch it" as far as it will go, (P.R.O.M.) and measure that.

3. Subtract your A.R.O.M. from your P.R.O.M.

4. The greater the distance between your A.R.O.M. and your P.R.O.M. the greater your uncontrolled, or U.R.O.M. is and the greater your potential for injury.

YIKES!

5. Now that you know this, NEVER repeat #2. again!

6. Buy The Better Than Stretching Workout™ video to find out how to increase your R.O.M. without increasing your potential for injury!