Designing Your Stretching Program (2)
The next type of stretching is called static stretching, and this simply involves holding the muscles in a stretched position, lengthening out your muscles, which habituates the stretch receptors in your muscles to that stretched out, or lengthened, position. When you do this, over time you reduce the signaling of those stretch receptors, and if you remember, those stretch receptors, or the muscle spindles that are in your muscle, cause a reflexive contraction if they're pulled too forcefully. So this is why we like to stretch slowly and carefully, and eventually, if you reduce the signaling of these muscle spindles, you allow greater lengthening of the muscles. And so this is why both getting into the position slowly and also only having mild tension or mild discomfort, not pain, and holding that stretch, is very important.