If you're practicing stretching exercises to open up your body and you're not looking at the foods
that you're eating, you're missing out on a huge point of leverage to help you get results. Maybe
you're a yoga student and you're just getting so sore after every class. Maybe you're a dancer or
a gymnast and you really need more range of motion for your activity. Maybe you're a CrossFitter and
you're trying to squat more deeply. Or maybe, like most people, you're just an average person
trying to prevent injury and move like a younger version of yourself, and that's why you want to
open up your hips, and your hamstrings, and your spine, your shoulders. So you're doing stretching
exercises but maybe you're just getting sore, and you're getting frustrated, and you're not
feeling like things are moving forward. If that's the case, food can make a big difference. Hey,
my name is Lucas. I'm a yoga teacher, I'm a teacher trainer, but I used to be a stiff office
guy. In fact, I remember my first yoga class I sat on the floor like this, but my knees were up,
my back was all hunched over, and it was really obvious to me that I needed some help. I kept
going to yoga class, obviously that helped, I also started using the Science of Stretching
approach to mobility training, that made a huge difference. But I also started focusing on food
and flexibility and, don't get me wrong, you still need to stretch, always do your stretches,
but food can make a big difference, especially when you're not getting results, especially if
you're feeling really stiff, especially if the day after you almost feel like you're going backwards.
The foods you eat can make a big, big difference in recovery and in how fast your body is able to
regenerate and create new tissues. In this video we'll talk about how stretching works, so you
can understand the process of change in terms of developing more range of motion. Secondly,
we'll talk about collagen. We'll also talk about muscle relaxation and anti-inflammation,
and then lastly, as you guessed, we'll go through a whole series of foods, very simple foods,
most of them taste pretty good, things you can add into your diet that can make a big
difference. Let's talk first about stretching and I'll just share with you my story. You know,
when I started doing deep stretches my friends and colleagues made fun of how much emphasis I
was putting on food and they said: "Listen, forget about all that dietary stuff, just do
your stretches". They were right, the stretches mattered, but the food matters too, and here's
an analogy that will help you understand. If you go to any bodybuilding gym, whether it's in Tokyo,
or London, or Los Angeles, you will find men and women in their gym bags they all have protein
shakes, they're drinking and eating tons and tons of protein, hundreds of grams of protein per day.
Why? It's very difficult to be a bodybuilder without using protein supplementation. You just
don't get enough protein. Okay, that's a weird example, what about runners? What about endurance
athletes? What if we went to an Ironman triathlon? What if we went to a marathon, or an ultra run,
like a 50 or 100 kilometer race? You would find many many people with sugary gels and energy bars
that were high, high in carbohydrates. Now, can you run 50 kilometers or 100 kilometers without
those sugary gels? Probably, but most people use those sugary gels. Now, we're not bodybuilders,
we're not endurance athletes, we're just trying to open up our hips, and our hamstrings,
and our shoulders, and our spine, but surely, surely there's foods that can help with that
too? Yes there are. It makes a big difference in terms of recovery, in terms of the rate of change,
and giving your body the nutrients that it needs. Well, if we're not trying to pack on muscle,
if we're not trying to encourage slow twitch muscles, so we can run for 12 hours straight,
what are we trying to do? Well, what we're trying to do is what I was trying to do, increase your
range of motion. We're trying to change our body's ability to express itself. What that means is,
on a very basic level, let's think about our hamstrings in a forward fold, if we were to zoom,
zoom, zoom in with a telescope, and then a microscope, and then a super microscope, you would
find the smallest contractile unit in your muscle fibers, they're called sarcomeres. Think about
them sort of like a chain-linked fence that closes when it contracts and relaxes to open. Most of us,
because we haven't trained flexibility very long, we're stuck in a half closed position. So, step
one of flexibility training is just teaching those existing sarcomeres, hamstrings, zoom, zoom, zoom,
teaching those existing contractile units to relax more. That's step one. That happens pretty
quickly, usually within two to four weeks. The next process, and this is where people often hit
a plateau, is when we get into sarcomerogenesis, where we have these existing contractile units,
these smallest contractile units, and we need more of them, boom, boom, boom. Sarcomerogenesis means
creating new sarcomeres. Creation requires nutrition. What kind of nutrition? Well,
we do need protein for sure, but we also need some very specific micronutrients that are
really helpful for collagen. Collagen is the most abundant protein in your body. It's all over the
place, it's in your hair, and your skin, and your tendons, and your ligaments, and your cartilage.
It's even in your muscles. And collagen is built up with proteins, but it's also built up with some
important micronutrients. Things like zinc, many people lack zinc. Things like copper, many people
are not getting enough. Things like sulfur, for example, and things like vitamin C. These four
micronutrients are very, very easy to bump up in your diet, and so I'd like to share with you some
foods that can be really helpful. Here are some foods you can use to bump up your zinc intake.
Here are some foods you can use to bump up your copper intake.
Here are some foods that can be helpful for increasing the amount of sulfur in your diet.
Lastly, vitamin C is available all over the place, but here are some of the more potent sources
of vitamin C. Aside from collagen, I'd like to also talk about the importance of relaxing your
stressed muscles, relaxing your tissues after you've had a deep stretching session, and one
of the most important micronutrients is simply magnesium. Now, magnesium is all over the planet,
it's all over our body, and yet most people don't get enough magnesium, simply because they're not
eating enough magnesium-rich foods. You could bump up your magnesium by eating more dark leafy green
vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, and especially dark, dark chocolate have lots of magnesium. And
magnesium can help your muscles to relax, heal and recover, and help you get a better night's sleep.
Lastly, and this is very important, is anti-inflammatory foods.
When you say anti-inflammatory many people think about ibuprofen and other non-steroidal
anti-inflammatory drugs. The problem is those are exogenous anti-inflammatory chemicals,
meaning they're from the outside and so they turn off your healing passageways,
even though they turn off inflammation, so you don't feel pain, you don't have inflammation, but
you've now slowed down the healing process. That's not going to help you get results. It's much
better to use things internally, specifically things like turmeric, things like bromelain,
that would come from something like pineapple for example, things like omega-3 fats are probably
the most potent. You can get omega-3 fats from whole food sources like chia seeds, flaxseeds,
cold water small fish. You can also take supplements. On the topic of supplements, I want
to give a little caveat. If you don't want to take supplements, you don't have to, but supplements
are something that we have now in modern society that give us tremendous access to concentrated
nutrients that are really hard to come by. There's this idea that in an ideal world we would get
every nutrient we need from the foods we eat. That has never happened in human history and it will
never happen again. If you look at archaeological records or whatever kind of historical reference,
you find nutritional deficiencies dating back as far as we have record of. If you're looking
for optimal health it can be really helpful, at times, to use nutritional supplements,
and the things that we've talked about - zinc, and copper, and sulfur, and vitamin C, and magnesium,
and omega-3s, these are very common and very safe to supplement with. And with the exception of
Omega-3s, they're very, very cheap and easy to synthesize, and the brands don't matter. When it
comes to Omega-3s, you really do need to choose quality supplements, because these are oils,
this is whole food. When it comes to something like magnesium, any store-bought magnesium is
going to be just fine. It's very similar to buying chalk, it's a very common thing. Keep
in mind that your body can't tell the difference between the vitamin C that's in a bell pepper or
blueberries and the vitamin C in the form of ascorbic acid that comes in a supplement form
in the pharmacy. If you'd like to go the whole food route, I fully support that, that's probably
a great way to go. If you'd like to supplement, I also support that. And whatever you'd like to do,
down below in the description I have a PDF link to a grocery shopping list that you could use
as reference and also a supplement list. These are not brand endorsements, I'm not telling you
where to buy, or what to buy, or how much to spend. But if you want to explore the route of
nutritional supplementation, which I think can be really, really beneficial when you're you're doing
periods of intense stretching, you'll find all the details down below. I hope you found this video
helpful. If you're actively stretching, nutrition can really help give you a boost and give you
results in the same way that a protein shake can help a bodybuilder. Again, please remember you
have to do your stretches to become more flexible, but if you give your body the nutrients it needs
to synthesize new tissues, to relax, and to fight inflammation, it can really make a big,
big difference. If you'd like more science-based yoga videos, hit subscribe down below. If you
have questions, comments, or feedback, please drop them down below. If you'd like to find my teaching
calendar, you'll find that at yogabody.com. I look forward to seeing you in the next video.