Наука о гибкости М.Дж.Атлер Реферат

Flexibility is a morphofunctional property of the musculoskeletal system, characterizing the mobility of its units. Flexibility is determined by the elasticity of the muscles and ligaments, which determine the amplitude of movements. Along with basic physical qualities, flexibility determines one of the main prerequisites for movement. Externally, it is manifested in the magnitude of the amplitude of flexion - extension and other movements. Accordingly, its indicators are determined by the limiting amplitude of movements, estimated in angular degrees or linear values.

Flexibility is the ability to perform movement with maximum amplitude, an important psychophysical quality, which, along with speed, strength, endurance, dexterity, is determined by the morphofunctional biological characteristics of a person.

Often flexibility is called mobility in the joints.

“The importance and significance of flexibility is beyond doubt. First, flexibility gives a person an important skill of a perfect body possession, the ability to feel it, to be in constant contact with body, to know its capabilities and to use them, to control it. This skill was extremely appreciated, and even ancient people strove to achieve it”.

Flexibility gives ease, freedom of action, emancipation, ease of movement, the ability to both concentrate the forces of your body and relax it.

Flexible man is handsome from an aesthetic point of view. Flexibility gives grace, elegance, plasticity, expressiveness of the movements.

A flexible person never spends his forces on unnecessary movements. His movements are extremely accurate and rational. This greatly facilitates, accelerates any activity, and saves domestic energy resources.

For a flexible person, the motor basis of any activity is reasonable and logically justified. People who are not sufficiently flexible have a reduced ability to stretch the muscles and an increased muscle tone. This leads to coordination disorders in the process of performing movements. An inflexible individual spends a much larger amount of energy, which means that his tiredness comes faster.

Injuries are often the result of a lack of flexibility. Often we speak of flexibility as being of paramount quality, influencing the character and result of a certain activity. In many activities, flexibility is a key to success. It allows you to quickly and better master the rational technique of performing movements, it is more economical to use force, speed and other physical qualities and on this basis to achieve the best practical results.

There are factors that can affect a person’s level of flexibility. They are age, gender, physique, laterality, training and circadian rhythms.

It has been established that women are more flexible men.

Gender differences also determine the superiority in articular mobility in girls at all ages by 20–30% compared with boys, and in women compared with men. It has been established that the mobility of persons with asthenic type is less than that of muscular type ones.

One of the anatomical factors that provide women with a greater degree of flexibility is the difference between the pelvis areas of men and women. The bones of the pelvis of men, as a rule, are heavier and larger, the border of the entrance to the pelvis is not rounded, the cavity is less wide; sarocadal cutting, pubic arch and sacrum are narrower, and the acetabulum is more compact than that of women. Women have wider hips, they have a greater range of movement in the pelvic area.

In addition, women are also characterized by a large amplitude of the elbow joint straightening. This is due to the shorter upper curvature of the olecranal process of the elbow joint in women compared with men.

Girls have a higher potential for developing flexibility after puberty, and especially the amplitude of the torso flexion due to a lower center of gravity and shorter leg length than boys. Corbin and Noble also emphasize that differences in regular physical activity between genders can cause differences in flexibility between them.

Joint’s mobility develops unevenly at different ages. Children of primary and secondary school age active joint’s mobility increases, and later decreases. The amount of passive mobility in the joints also decreases with age. Moreover, the greater the age, the smaller the difference between active and passive mobility in the joints. This is due to the gradual deterioration of the musculo-ligamentous apparatus elasticity, intervertebral discs and other morphological changes. Age features in joints must be taken into account in the flexibility development process.

The special effect of physical exercises on joints mobility should be coordinated with the natural course of the organism age development.

As the body develops, flexibility also changes unevenly. For example, spinal mobility increases markedly in boys from 7 to 14 years, while in girls from 7 to 12 years, at an older age, the increase in flexibility decreases. The mobility of the spine during flexion increases significantly in boys of 7-10 years, and then decreases in 11-13 years. High rates of flexibility are observed in boys at the age of 15, and in girls at the age of 14, with active movements, the flexibility is somewhat less than at passive ones.

In the shoulder girdle joints, mobility during flexion and extension movements increases to 12–13 years, the highest results occur in 9–10 years.

In the hip joint, the increase in mobility is the largest from 7 to 10 years, in subsequent years the increase in flexibility slows down and by 13–14 years is close to adults. In individuals of different ages, there is a negative relationship between flexibility and muscle strength - with an increase in muscle strength as a result of training, mobility in joints, as a rule, decreases.

Nowadays knowledge of the physique can be defined as a set of relatively stable morphological and functional properties of the human body, formed as a result of the implementation of the genetic code under the influence of specific environmental factors. These properties form the individual features of structure and body functions and determine the response to constantly changing environmental factors.

As the motor capabilities of people, as many of the individual features of sports equipment largely depend on the characteristics of the physique. They primarily include:

a) total body size - the main dimensions characterizing its size (body length, weight, chest circumference, body surface, etc.);

b) proportions of the body - the size ratio of individual’s body parts (limbs, torso, etc.);

c) constitutional features.

Total body size for people is significantly different. In the same sport (for example, in wrestling or weightlifting) you can meet athletes with a body weight less than 50 and over 150 kg. Movement capabilities of these athletes will be different.

There have been made many attempts to link flexibility with such factors as proportions, surface area, subcutaneous folds thickness and body weight. The results are ambiguous because flexibility has a particular specificity: degree or magnitude of the movement amplitude is individual for each joint. Consequently, the movement amplitude of the shoulder joint does not correlate with the movement amplitude of the hip, and the movement amplitude in one hip or shoulder joint may differ from the movement amplitude in the other. Moreover, flexibility is specific not only for the body joints, but also for the individual movements of the joints. The concept of flexibility specificity is based on the fact that different muscles, bone structures and connective tissue are involved in various joint movements. Thus, it cannot be argued that flexibility exists as a separate general characteristic of the human body. Therefore, no complex test or indicator of joint action can provide an exhaustive indicator of the characteristics of a person’s flexibility.

A race is a grouping of humans based on shared physical or social qualities into categories generally viewed as distinct by society. First used to refer to speakers of a common language and then to denote national affiliations, by the 17th century the term race began to refer to physical (phenotypical) traits. Modern scholarship regards race as a social construct, that is, a symbolic identity created to establish some cultural meaning. While partially based on physical similarities within groups, race is not an inherent physical or biological quality.

According to the studies, conducted by the scientists, white people are more flexible then Afro-Americans. 

The term laterality refers to the preference most humans show for one side of their body over the other. Examples include left-handedness/right-handedness and left/right-footedness; it may also refer to the primary use of the left or right hemisphere in the brain. It may also apply to animals or plants. The majority of tests have been conducted on humans, specifically to determine the effects on language.

Perhaps the most obvious example of lateral dominance is the more frequent or more skillful use of one hand as compared to the other. Lateral dominance is associated with asymmetric functions organization of the cerebral hemispheres, but this relationship cannot be considered strict.

Most people are right-handers, although there is a significant variation in the difference in effectiveness, strength and frequency of using the right hand compared to the left.

The most important example of lateral dominance is the use of the legs or eyes, although it is less studied than hand. Despite the fact that most right-handed people are also “right-legged” and “right-eyed,” there are quite a few who are characterized by mixed dominance by arm, leg and eye. Even if environmental factors play a significant role in the determination of lateral dominance. Some research suggest a certain role of hereditary influences in the structure of this determination.

For example, a baseball player can perform a left-handed hit, and a throw - with right hand. Sometimes some athletes demonstrate bilateral skills, despite the one-sided nature of sports, which they do. An example would be a boxer, equally working well with both hands. In some sports, bilateral development is quite possible (martial arts, basketball, football); other types require only bilaterally development (swimming, weightlifting).

For example, inner rotation of the tennis players’ shoulder is characterized by considerable tightness on the dominant side of the body. The amplitude of the external rotation of the shoulder dominant hands far exceeds the amplitude of the shoulder movement nondominant hand. When observing baseball players significant differences in the level of flexibility between the right and left parts of the body are not revealed.

Workout is a short preparation for sports training or stretching, carried out just before the start of the exercise. Workout reduces possible discomfort during training process, and also reduces the risk of injury. Physiologically, workout helps your circulatory system to tune into classes and improves the supply of working muscles with oxygen. The challenge is to gradually improve blood circulation throughout the body. Thus, the workout prepares the body to meet the needs of the muscles during exercise. Cold muscles can not withstand stress, which will lead to their damage. Despite the fact that experts are still in search of the perfect workout, its need is not in doubt. Workout should be performed before power, aerobic and anaerobic workouts, as well as before stretching.

During the workout occur such changes in the body that best prepare you for the upcoming physical work. If we neglect the workout, these changes will occur directly during the execution of the main activity, reducing its effectiveness. In addition, when working without pre-warming up, the risk of injury is extremely high (and in sick people, there are attacks of the disease).

During exercise, the nervous system sends executive commands to the muscles, processes information from the muscles and internal organs, and provides coordination between the organs (their coordinated interaction). As a result, neuromuscular interaction is improved, the reactions speed, the movement accuracy and coordination is increased, and the learning processes of new motor skills are facilitated.

The elasticity of muscles and ligaments increases, which reduces the risk of injury.

Warming up before you start motor exercises activity can be divided into two types: passive and active. Passive workout involves the use of any means or procedures (hot bath, ultrasound, etc.). Active warm up is the exercise of an athlete; it can divided into special and general. Special warm-up provides for the imitation or execution of movements, used in competitive activities. For example, a baseball player during a warm-up can throw the ball or perform filing. General warm-up includes performing movements, not directly related to those performed during competitive activity; it might be jogging work on bicycle ergometer. The essence of the workout depends on the individual needs; however, it should be enough intense to raise the internal temperature and cause slight sweating, however should not lead to fatigue. 

Circadian rhythms are cyclical fluctuations in the intensity of various physiological processes of the body, depending on the change of external and internal conditions. Circadian rhythms are characteristic of all living organisms. In particular, a person has an internal clock in accordance with which our active vital activity changes throughout life.

Depending on this rhythm, various systems of our body, the endocrine glands, work. For example, going to sleep and waking up occur at about the same time. Similarly, if you eat on a schedule, the gastric juice begins to stand out at the time of the next meal. It is our internal clock that determines whether to do some business or to relax.

Human circadian rhythms are manifested by the oscillations of various physiological parameters, including blood pressure, body temperature, heart rate, levels hormones. In addition, the function of circadian rhythms are changes in internal response (neurotransmitters, electrolytes or metabolic substrates) and external stimuli (for example, factors environment, food, drugs).

Man is experiencing significant stiffness after sleep or at certain times days.

The greatest amplitude of movements is noted in the interval from 10:00 to 11:00 and from 16:00 to 17:00, and the minimum - early in the morning.

The maximum level of flexibility was noted in the period from mid-day to mid-night.

Circadian height fluctuations. The length of the spine decreases in daylight and is restored to night. It was found that the physiological curves of the spine bend more during the day. Therefore, reduces body length. At night, the spine recovers its original shape and body length becomes normal. Average daily variations in body length are 15.7 mm; the smallest the degree of fluctuation is observed in people over 50 years.

Morphofunctional features of the working muscles.

The level of changes in the morphological, biochemical and functional characteristics of the working muscles is an important factor of increased flexibility. In the process of active muscle activity, the content of contractile proteins increases, the amount of myoglobin increases, the oxygen capacity of muscles increases, and the intensity of oxidative processes increases. Under the influence of physical activity, morphological and biochemical changes occur in the working muscles, functional changes that increase the excitability and the lability of the muscles are detected. All these changes contribute to an increase in muscle extensibility and an increase in flexibility.

The rhythm of movements is of great importance for achieving a certain rationalization of a person’s motor activity. Rhythmic movements maintain a stable level of muscles excitability, which is a favorable factor for increasing their elasticity. With arrhythmic movements, the muscles excitability decreases, which leads to a decrease in their elastic properties. For example, performing a foot swing at first with a small amplitude and gradually increasing it to the maximum, the student achieves a large increase in active flexibility.

Positive emotions stimulate the activity of vegetative organs, increase gas exchange, and increase heart rate. All this has a positive effect on the state of excitability of the muscles, their elasticity and elasticity. Exercises for the development of flexibility must be performed in an atmosphere of positive emotions, which stimulates the hormonal activity, provides an improvement of regulatory processes.

The state of muscle temperature also significantly affects to increase flexibility. The dependence of the elastic properties of muscles on temperature is determined by the intensity of metabolism, the rate of oxidative processes. In well-warmed muscles, blood circulates more strongly, so a preliminary warm-up aimed at preparing muscles for basic physical activity is a necessary condition for the effectiveness of exercises for the development of flexibility.

There are some factors that can affect potential degree of flexibility. We can distinguish gender, age, body built, body weight, predominant laterality and many others. It has been established that the development of flexibility can occur in any age subject to adequate program construction occupations. 

In conclusion, we can conclude that flexibility is an integral assessment of the mobility of body links. There are two forms of its manifestation: active, characterized by the magnitude of the amplitude of movements when performing exercises  independently, thanks to their muscular efforts; passive, characterized by the maximum magnitude of the amplitude of movements achieved by the action of external forces. There are also general and special flexibility. The general characterizes mobility in all joints of the body and allows you to perform a variety of movements with a large amplitude. Special flexibility is a limiting mobility in individual joints, determining the effectiveness of sports or professional-applied activity. They develop flexibility through stretching muscles and ligaments. In general, they can be classified not only by active and passive orientation, but also by the nature of muscle work.

The flexibility depends on: the structure of the joints, the elasticity of muscles, ligaments, articular bags, mental state, the degree of activity of the stretched muscles, warm-up, massage, body temperature and environment, daily periodicals, age, strength level of fitness, the initial position of the body and its parts, the rhythm of movement prestressing muscles.

The flexibility development should go in accordance with the development of muscle strength.

To do the flexibility exercises you need to warm up properly. To start the exercises, as you like, you need to start with the simplest ones and only gradually move on to ones that are more difficult. Stretching at first is the most unpleasant thing. Discomfort is her usual companion. Nevertheless, there should be no pain. It does not improve your form at all, rather the opposite.