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[balme]

paley says that stretching before surgery helps mostly to adapt PT, not actually affecting lengthening success/tissue adaptation, etc.
of course if dr.paley says that i would believe but how?
i mean think like a person who can do full front splits, doesn't that mean ligaments and soft tissues stretched unusually comparing with a normal person?

[lessthanavg8300]

I think the idea behind this is any flexibility you had will be gone within a week or so of extending.  From there its just your muscles, tendons and nerves ripping apart.  So pre-flexibility doesnt spare you from this.  That said I will absolutely be stretching beforehand because even a week or 2 increase in recovery time is better than nothing.  And it will also get you used to doing it and seeing what works.

[balme]

I think the idea behind this is any flexibility you had will be gone within a week or so of extending.  From there its just your muscles, tendons and nerves ripping apart.  So pre-flexibility doesnt spare you from this.  That said I will absolutely be stretching beforehand because even a week or 2 increase in recovery time is better than nothing.  And it will also get you used to doing it and seeing what works.

yeah i guess that's the case. i thought it would like muscle memory, if you are muscular you gain muscles back quite easily, but that's happening in the stretching.

[lessthanavg8300]

So I went back and watched the video and he actually says its important to have some flexibility beforehand and they perform several flexibility tests.  Different surgeons seem to have different opinions on this.

[SpeedDialer]

I've also found this confusing

Dr. Paley saying he doesn't think that doing alot of stretching before surgery is that important

And yet at the same time, doctors use your flexibility at the time right before surgery to help them make decisions. Ex: "your X muscle is tight so we'll have to watch out for that"

But your flexibility right before doing the surgery is influenced by your stretching before the surgery

So which is it?

The only thing I thought of was that my flexibility progress (in terms of how much flexibility I gain in X days) seems to be faster (in terms of amount of improvement/day) now that I've done the surgery and am going to physical therapy + on alot of pain killers + the physical therapy center people using the electricity/cold pads for pain. So maybe Dr. Paley (he is not my doctor) feels that the stretching done after the surgery is just alot more important than the stretching done before? I don't know?

[RealLostSoul]

I think it's more to do with the fact that by lengthening your bone by 8cm, you can never reach muscle flexibility enough to accompany that beforehands. For everybody doing this there is a certain length were muscle tightness hits you because your natural muscle flexibility "reserve" is done. Then stretching becomes really really necessary. Usually this is 2-3 cm for most people. If you are very very flexible this "checkpoint" is pushed upwards but only to like 4cm max. This means those people could do 4cm without stretching at all.

Stretching is necessary to lengthen your muscles to adapt to the new bone length once they are tight. That's why stretching before is helpful to get into a routine and feeling but not for the actual lengthening. You can't stretch beforehand and get like 7cm longer muscles lol. They will adapt once the progress is going and you are tight, then you need to stretch and walk and have PT. Stretching is number 1 though.