Stretching Your Second Heart
by Madeline Carson – Medical Assistant

Final Kick – Ankle & Foot

Dr. Sekulic continues to introduce me to exceptional podcasts that challenge my previous way of thinking. Recently I learned about stretching your second heart…yes, a second heart! We all have a second blood pumping mechanism in our legs that is feedback driven through activity and stretching.

Nic Bartolotta, founder of the National Resistance Stretching Association, licensed physical therapy practitioner, and guest speaker on Josh Trent’s podcast radio, Wellness Force, refers to our lower extremity pump system as our second heart. Dr. Bartolotta believes there are many misconceptions about stretching, and tend to lead patients down a path of injuries. He is trying to bring a new form of stretching to the playing field, DCT, or Dynamic Contraction Technique. Read more to learn about DCT, the difference between flexibility and flex-ABILITY, and how you too can stretch your second heart.

Now I am no stranger to stretching; growing up I would have my sister sit on me while I was in my middle splits to get them flat. Dance instructors would manipulate our legs to the desired height in our leg extensions, or push our backs deeper into a forward fold. The examples I just gave were all types of a form of stretching called static stretching. Static stretching is when the target muscle is elongating as you go deeper into the position. While I didn’t think anything of these static stretching techniques, the podcast shed light on how this method can actually be more harmful! Improper usage of static stretching puts pressure on muscle and bones that can result in injury.

Resistance stretching counters the ideas that 1: stretching is painful, and 2: you are supposed to relax into the stretch. Dr. Bartolotta theorizes that by keeping a muscle contracted during a stretch, is our body’s natural protection mechanism. The pain signals that we have reached our limit. You hear fitness instructors constantly telling participants to “push through the pain!” I too am guilty of using this dialogue when I’m teaching at the dance studio. So, is this mindset wrong?

Dr. Bartolotta explains that it is wrong to disassociate ourselves from our body’s pain notifications. If you train yourself to depersonalize for too long, you lose the ability to tap back into understanding your natural muscle cues, and this increases the chance of developing chronic or traumatic injuries. The sharpness during a stretch indicates you are going too far. The burning sensation of muscle working to fatigue is a better stretching response. Dr. Bartolotta triggers the better stretch sensation in patients during his DCT training sessions. Patients leave the experience feeling euphoric and light, because muscles that were once restricted from proper circulation, now have all the blood nutrients flowing back.

Now for the second heart theory. The calf is very vascularized, and the soleus, one of the deepest muscles in the lower leg, can be characterized as this heart. The soleus is in the perfect position to utilize other muscle contractions as well as its own to pump blood back up to the heart. Often times if the soleus is being restricted by surrounding muscle and fascia, the pumping mechanism will also be restricted. Dr. Bartolotta’s DCT stretching technique breaks up the adhesions and fascia tension, to promote blood flow, and relieve negative restriction.

Let’s segue into tiny anatomy lesson: Our bodies are connected by a “closed system of tension.” Fascial lines, or connective tissue, make it so our muscles are all connected. This could imply a deeper relationship between pain felt in one area, like the feet for example, and its effect somewhere else in the body, like tension headaches. This had me thinking that patients at Final Kick who are coming in for ankle or foot pain, may also find relief in other parts of their body after our services, since it is all connected!

DCT is derived on the concept of connective tissue and the principle that the ability to flex a muscle is more important than its ability to lengthen; injuries happen in joints when the ability to flex a muscle is compromised. Dr. Bartolotta explains the antagonist-protagonist muscle relationship to reinforce this concept. Muscle tightness on one side of a joint, relates to injury or blow out from the joint in the other. He used the example of back problems and tight hip flexors; the principle states the tightness and buildup of pressure from the hip flexors at one point will blow out the lower back. Have you ever heard of someone throwing their back out just by simply bending down to pick something up from the floor? That person was not flex ABLE enough to contract their hip flexors without sending too much pressure to the back so it finally couldn’t take it.

The new concepts of stretching were a lot to wrap my head around. As far as patient implementation, the first key point to address is to make sure patients are keeping the muscle engaged throughout the entire stretch. The resistance is a great indicator to see how far the stretch should go. Second, always perform a dynamic stretching warm up before starting a workout. Remember how static stretching is the type where muscles are lengthened? Dynamic stretching is when you introduce big range of motion movements to the joints, to promote blood flow and load the joints with external body weight. Resistance stretching should be done post workout since you are wanted to relief your body of all the tension it has accumulated during the workout. Lastly, stretching should be performed by people of every age, athlete or not, to reverse the effects of our sedentary lifestyle, maintain the functionality of our muscles, progress in workout regimens, and improve your overall quality of life.