Active Isolated Stretching

The Pain-Relieving Power of Stretching the Right Way

by Stephen O’Dwyer, CNMT

Since 2008 Active Isolated Stretching (AIS) has assumed an increasingly prominent role in my private practice. Not only is it the most effective stretching technique I’ve ever come across, but this technique is helping me to resolve client problems that have not responded to other strategies.

I had heard about this stretching technique years prior, but it wasn’t until early in 2008 that I experienced it first-hand. I was attending a bodywork conference at the Pura Vida Resort in Costa Rica where Aaron Mattes, originator of Active Isolated Stretching, was a guest teacher.

When Aaron first got up to speak before the group, his commanding presence immediately filled the room. A bespectacled, grey-haired giant in his sixties, it wasn’t only his 6’ 6” stature and huge gesturing hands that got my attention. His intense passion for the work, for its potential to help people, simply poured out of him.

No doubt he had given this introductory talk a thousand times during his nearly 40 year career, but he spoke like a man who’d just recently discovered something wonderful and new and profoundly beneficial to humankind. Soon I would understand his enthusiasm.

Active Isolated Stretching: The Basics

In summary, this is what Aaron shared with us in his opening remarks:

For many years, a static stretch of up to 60 seconds or longer has been the gold standard of stretching. But research has clearly shown that a static stretch of 5 seconds or longer stimulates what’s known as the protective stretch reflex. This reflex results in an antagonistic muscle contraction, an undesirable response when attempting to stretch soft tissue.

Many of us have felt the truth of this protective response. The muscle you’re stretching aches, your body trembles, and you fight to keep the stretch going. But still the “no pain, no gain” credo persists in our minds and we continue to try to force our bodies to do something they’re not designed to do.

In order to optimally stretch both muscle and fascia you must insure that you’re not triggering the protective stretch reflex. How do you do that? By performing a repeated stretch held no longer than 2 seconds.

Also, by having the client actively move rather than be passive, you take advantage of a very helpful neurological law, the law of reciprocal inhibition.

Around the room you saw heads nodding and faces lit up with excited recognition. We were all thinking the same thing: all that just makes common sense.

Aaron Demonstrating Active Isolated Stretching

Aaron then proceeded to demonstrate on a woman, a participant, who’d been having terrible trouble with her neck and shoulder, and had also had a history of migraines. She reported having had lots of different types of massage and chiropractic with little lasting success.

Very gently Aaron tested her neck range of motion and then shoulder range of motion. There was barely any movement. He then began to move her right arm, instructing her to open it as wide as possible. It didn’t go far but at the end of its range of motion, he eased the limb into subtle stretch, just for a second or so, then returned the limb to its starting position.

That movement was repeated about 10 times and with each repetition we watched her range, so limited when she began, extend further and further. She reported being entirely comfortable and there was no appearance of strain. Aaron didn’t force anything but still her range of motion kept improving. It was like watching muscle tissue simply melt. By the time ten repetitions had been completed, the woman was exclaiming, It hasn’t stretched that far in... years!

Aaron performed several more stretches in this manner for her shoulder and then her neck, and the same thing occurred. Movement was created where there had been none.

“It’s not magic,” Aaron assured us. “It basic physiology.”

My Experience Using Active Isolated Stretching

My study in Costa Rica with Aaron was followed by many seminars, including his advanced training. Additionally I hosted Aaron for a seminar in Burlington, Vermont in 2008 which was a wonderful opportunity for local practitioners to gain exposure to this innovative method.

This powerful method of stretching has had an immediate and profound impact on my clients. Not only do they find this method extremely effective at resolving mysterious pain patterns and improving stubborn inflexibility, but they find it much more enjoyable, especially for those who have struggled with stretching in the past.

Instead of holding stretches for 30 to 60 seconds — struggling and wondering if working — Active Isolated Stretching uses a repeated 2-second stretch and a fixed number of reps. This enables an individual to quickly and efficiently move through a series of, say, 5-7 or 7-10 different stretches.

This remark was from an active fifty-something business traveler who came to me for sciatica. It turned out that he didn’t have sciatica but rather intense gluteal and hip flexor tightness. After teaching him Active Isolated Stretching, his “sciatica” symptoms disappeared completely.

This is just one of many, many examples I’ve experienced over the years of clients gaining tremendous benefit from this method.

Development of the Stretching Blueprint

When COVID hit and my practice was closed by governor’s order in March of 2020, I turned my full attention to the development of online course work.

The result was the creation of my learning platform, Relieving That Pain Online Courses and the release of the platform’s flagship course: Stretching Blueprint for Pain Relief and Better Flexibility: The Complete Guide to Active Isolated Stretching.

This course is a self-paced step-by-step video guide to this powerful stretching method. To date it is unlike anything available anywhere.

The course includes a proprietary self-evaluation protocol — the Flexibility Diagnostic — which provides a crystal clear snapshot of exactly where the body is stuck. The results of the Flexibility Diagnostic allow for the creation of a highly individualized stretching plan: Your Stretching Blueprint.

Back to top