Chapter 4: Flexibility Training Concepts Flashcards
Flexibility
The normal extensibility of all soft tissues that allow full range of motion of a joint and optimum neuromuscular efficiency throughout all functional movements.
Cumulative injury
cycle
A cycle whereby an “injury” will induce inflammation, muscle spasm, adhesions, altered neuromuscular control, and muscle imbalances.
Altered reciprocal
inhibition
The concept of muscle inhibition caused by a tight agonist, decreasing the neural drive of its functional antagonist.
Synergistic
dominance
The neuromuscular phenomenon that occurs when synergists take over the function of a weak or inhibited prime mover.
Arthrokinetic
dysfunction
The biomechanical dysfunction in two articular partners that lead to abnormal joint movement (arthrokinematics) and proprioception.
All-or-none principle
When a muscle fiber is stimulated to contract, the entire fiber contracts completely.
Endomysium
The innermost fascial layer that encases individual muscle fibers.
Perimysium
The sheath that binds groups of muscle fibers into fasciculi.
Epimysium
The outermost layer of a muscle fiber.
Atrophy
The loss in muscle fiber size.
Sarcopenia
A decrease in muscle fiber numbers.
Integrated Flexibility Continuum
The full range of flexibility—corrective, active, and functional flexibility—that must be addressed to counteract muscle atrophy and other physical changes due to aging, immobilization,
or injury.
Elasticity
The spring-like behavior of connective tissue that enables the tissue to return to its original shape or size when forces are removed.
Elastic limit
The smallest value of stress required to produce permanent strain in the tissue.
Plasticity
The residual or permanent change in connective tissue length due to tissue elongation.
Viscoelasticity
The fluid-like property
of connective tissue that allows slow deformation with an imperfect recovery after the deforming forces are removed.
Davis’s Law
The observation that soft tissue models along the lines of stress.
Wolff’s Law
The observation that bone in a healthy person or animal will adapt to the loads under which it is
placed.
Recruitment
An impulse transmitted simultaneously over an increasing number of nerve fibers pulling in increasingly more muscle fibers for the task.
Golgi tendon
organs (GTO)
Mechanoreceptors located within the musculotendinous junction that are sensitive to tension and rate of tension change.
Muscle spindles
The major sensory organs of the muscle sensitive to change in length and rate of length change.
Autogenic inhibition
The inhibitory action to muscle spindles located within the agonist muscle by prolonged GTO stimulation.
Joint receptors
Receptors in the joints that signal joint position, movement, and pressure changes.
Myotatic stretch
reflex
A motor response in the spinal cord that results when a muscle is stretched very quickly; the muscle spindle contracts, which in turn stimulates the primary afferent fibers, causing the extrafusal fibers to fire, whereby tension increases in the muscle.
