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Lecture Notes

The reflexive muscle contraction that we just talked about on the previous slide is called the stretch reflex. The Golgi tendon organs, located in the tendons and not the muscles here, but the tendons, help to prevent excessive strain in the muscle and to protect the muscle from injury in the case of rapid and forceful contractions, and these Golgi tendons do this by causing relaxation of the muscle. So to summarize, the three main factors that affect flexibility are joint structure, soft tissues and nervous system activity. But these aren't the only things that affect physical activity. Some other factors that can influence your flexibility include your age; so as we age, again, we talked about losing some of that compliance and elasticity in your muscles, which generally reduces your flexibility as you age. Gender can also affect flexibility; women are general more flexible than men. And finally, as we talked about before, your level of physical activity; the more physical activity you do, the more likely it is that you're moving your joints through their range of motion, and generally that can enhance your flexibility.