What is a ‘flexologist’ — and do you need to see one?

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What is a ‘flexologist’ — and do you need to see one?

The panels seemed to proliferate around Los Angeles-along the Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park, in mini-centers on the Pacific Coast road, in the side streets of Glendale and Venice: Strectlab, Stretchspot, stretch area.

A woman puts massage tables while her practitioner adjusts a towel under her head.

I was curious to support the stretching assisted for a while. But I never thought of visiting a studio. Of course, “recovery” is an increasing trend in physical form – which means that rejuvenating muscles, tendons and the central nervous system between exercise sessions by focusing on hydration, appropriate nutrition, sleep and, yes, active stretches in order to maximize athletic performance. But I have three foam rollers – a smooth, a thorny, a padded – and even Use them at home. I am also far from being an extreme athlete, rather preferring live hikes for cardio and basic strength training.

Why could I drive in a mini commercial center and pay someone to stretch me? What would he even be look Like – And was it worth it?

The questions scolded in my head while I passed after another point violin recently – this one on Beverly Boulevard near Hollywood. So I called them.

It turns out that Sandlab, who opened his first studio in Venice in 2015, now has more than 500 studios on a national scale, including 15 in the Los Angeles region. Its customers are generally either serious athletes, older adults and office employees who fight with stiffness and want to work on their mobility, or healing injuries and other conditions. They become more deeply extended, in positions in which they could not enter, physically, alone. Many of them appreciate the intimacy and the responsibility of working with a practitioner, head-to-head. And it may be useful to have a professional, with a formed eye, to isolate asymmetries in their bodies and to guide their stretching, in particular for those who suffer from chronic pain or who heal an injury, explains the director of marketing of Stretralab, Gabi Khowploum.

“We see a lot of people who say:” Hey, I have back pain, “says Khowploum. “And they come to stretch it, but it may be they have problems with the mobility of the hip – they just don’t realize it.”

Extensible therapists – or “flexologists”, as they are sometimes called – are not doctors. Chiropractors, physiotherapists and certain massage therapists are trained in assisted stretches – but extensible therapists cannot do what they do. Extendable therapists do not diagnose and do not treat injuries; They do not provide vertebral or joint manipulation, imaging such as X -rays or computed tomography or massage. Rather, they focus on stretching muscles and fascia to increase flexibility and mobility. There is also no national certification for extensible therapists, as there is for physiotherapists and chiropractors, although most extensible therapists are certified internally by their respective employers.

Dr. Jeremy Swisher, a sports doctor at UCLA Health, said that assisted stretching can help increase the amplitude of movements and flexibility, stimulate blood circulation, which helps healing and helping posture, especially for sedentary populations, as well as to mitigate stress. Doing in a consistent way, in the long term, this can help relieve pain and stiffness and, possibly – prevent injuries. But it is “not a cure-all,” he warns.

“It’s just a piece of the puzzle,” he says. “Force training and other forms of exercise are just as important, long -term.” Swisher also warns that helped stretching could exacerbate existing injuries “like an acute sprained or a tear without being eliminated by a doctor first.” And for those who suffer from hypermobility syndromes, which means too flexible joints, “it is important to be aware that an increase in stretching could cause articulation dislocations.”

Recent Friday afternoon, Stutraflab in Echo Park was more busy than I would have planned. Several customers put their back on what looked like massage tables while their flexologists were rolling, twisted or pressed on their parts of the body – a member on the shoulder here, a vertebral turn there.

A man and a woman shown from behind looking at the evaluation scores on an iPad.

My practitioner, Joel Badilla, told me about the evaluation before my 50 -minute session (as a “drop”, it cost me $ 125, but prices differ depending on the package and the location). Streetlab uses a 3D body scanning tool called MAPS, which TRX training has developed for them. It assesses mobility (amplitude of motion), activation (quality of movement), posture and symmetry in order to isolate tight or unbalanced areas and personalize an extensible program for the customer. I made three air squats in front of an iPad before the cards give me a score in each area. (The scores much lower than I would have liked, the culprits being tight hips and the “neck of technology”, but this is the case with office employees, I was told.)

Then I laid down on the table and badilla raised my legs and slightly pulled them towards him. It was wonderful, as if my spine was lying down, all the stress escaping from my back. He then put me through 26 stretching, 13 on each side of my body.

A woman goes to bed on a massage table while a man pulls on her legs.

Streetlab uses the stretch of PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation), explained Badilla, which is a “push and liberation” technique. The recipient holds the section for a defined period of time, then pushes in the resistance provided by the practitioner for a shorter period, then returns in a deeper version of stretching. We have done so several times for different parts of the body.

Subsequently, I felt loose and introduced by returning to my car – although the feeling did not last long after my car returns home. Indeed, the advantages of stretching come from consistency, explains Amber Donaldson, vice-president of sports medicine clinics for the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee.

“The simple fact of stretching once is not beneficial,” she says. “You need two weeks, minimum, consistent to see an advantage. These [assisted stretching] Places – Paying for a series of treatments can keep you consistent with the fact. »»

That said, there are questions about the advantages of stretching, on the whole, in the community of sports medicine, adds Donaldson. “It’s controversial. When should you do it – before or after a training session – and to what extent is it beneficial at all? The jury is always absent. ”

A man stretches a woman's leg as she sets on a massage table.

Streetlab is far from an anomaly to, there are more than half a dozen stretched companies assisted dedicated in the region-and the trend, which began to swell nationally in 2017-2018, does not seem to increase. In addition to franchises like Sandlab and Stretch Zone, many personal coaches offer assisted stretching, as are most physiotherapists. Gymnasiums such as Life Time in the County of Orange and the Los Angeles Athletic Club offer head-on-one stretching now. Even certain massage points of sale, such as the desire for massage, offer stretching sessions assisted by 30 and 60 minutes.

The basic concept of assisted stretching is the same, it doesn’t matter where you go, but different studios adopt slightly different approaches.

The expandable area in Redondo Beach and Rancho Palos Verdes does not use the PNF technique. Instead, the studio (which has nearly 400 points of sale on a national scale) uses a graduated stretching modality that moves the customer along a intensity scale of 1-10. It starts at three “just when you start to feel the section,” said owner Deborah Ashley, “and seven is the place where you want to stop.” They also use a patented system of belts and straps on an expandable table “to secure and mobilize one side of your body while we stretch the other,” explains Ashley. “It acts as a second set of hands for our practitioners.”

Extended to Glendale has only one location in the Los Angeles region (there are around 30 in the United States). It is proud not to be part of a particularly large deductible, explains the owner Carlos Rivera, adding that the studio adopts a personal approach and based on data for the stretching of therapy. He uses the PNF stretching technique but puts a lot of emphasis on warming before individual stretching sessions. To this end, customers make 15 -minute warm -up routines on “stretch coaches”, which have inclined seats, leg pads and safety straps for stability. A video guides them through the routine, which includes a soft movement and is supposed to stimulate traffic. “You want to warm up before you stretch,” says Rivera, “to get a much better advantage.”

Would I again make helped stretches?

Absolutely – it was softer than I imagined and I felt immediate relief afterwards, especially in the lower back.

Would I do it regularly?

Not for the stretralab membership rate of $ 320 per month, their cheapest monthly package of four 50 -minute sessions (prices vary slightly depending on the location). At Stretch Zone, the almost comparable package of four 60 -minute sessions is $ 400. In Stretched, four 55 -minute sessions are $ 216.

But this particular Friday, at least, I went to the weekend by feeling more loose and, if nothing else, a thumb or more. I take it.

abdulmanannet77@gmail.com1 week ago

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