Have you ever been doing a stretch for your hamstrings but also feel it in your calf or maybe your glutes? The reason this happens is that all of these muscle are connected together through fascia, skin, nueruologically and through blood vessels. They make up part of the body called the posterior chain. The posterior chain also includes your back too, but we are going to be talking about the legs.
The different parts of our body are obviously meant to work together to create movement and the posterior chain is a great example. Running is used in most sports and is the easiest way to show how the posterior chain works. The glutes, hamstrings and calf all work together to extend the leg forcefully to propel you forward. The glutes and hamstring work together to extend the hip while the calf plantar flexes the foot.
The posterior chain muscles work very hard when running to propel us forward and often we can get a little tight in all these muscles. The fascial layer is woven between all the layers of our body from our toes all the way up to our head. It’s like a big internal knit sweater. Our nerves and blood vessels also run the entire length of our body. That is why a lot of times a whole section of our body will feel tight.
In the video below I go over some of my favorite mobility exercises that provide some movement to the posterior chain muscles. If you have a feeling of tightness in any of these muscle go ahead and give them a try. They are not meant to hurt, so do them gently. If you are a runner you should definitely be doing these.
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