No time for stretching? Everybody’s got time for stretching! When working out, many people leave off one of the most important exercises, stretching! It doesn’t even take 10 minutes to do a complete stretching, and the benefits are astounding!
Improvement of Blood Circulation
Circulation of the blood means that your body gets rid of waste byproducts by making the blood flow through your muscles. If you have obtained muscular injuries, a great way to recover quicker is stretching.
Increases Flexibility and Range of Motion
Day to day living is made easy by being flexible. Have a hard time tying your cleats? Is your back tighter than normal while squatting or doing bent over rows? Having difficulty keeping up during sprints? Sore hamstrings or having muscle aches. Problems such as these can be aided by stretching. Maintaining a healthy body while training and playing hard is not easy. However, one can prevent injuries and regain full range of motion by regular stretching.
Straightening the Curve
Stretching can do wonders for postures by keeping your muscles from getting tight, thus you will not have much difficulty in maintaining the correct posture. Good posture will aid your technique.
Releasing Stress
One way to effectively release stress is by relaxing the tight muscles through stretching.
How to Start Stretching?
Warm Up
Sometimes injuries are caused because athletes are impatient and they start out stretching with cold muscles. Take a little more time, walk around, pump your arms, rotate your shoulders, rotate your hip flexors, in order to warm up the muscles and blood vessels.
Hold It
In order for muscles to properly lengthen, hold the stretch for a period of time. It’s better to stretch and hold an area for 30 seconds and even up to 60 seconds for a particularly tight area.
Avoid Bouncing
Bouncing can cause unnecessary micro tears in the muscle making your muscles tighter, thus decreasing flexibility.
Breathe
Relax while stretching and make sure to breathe deep and exhale long.
Do Both Sides
Don’t forget both sides when stretching. This provides equality to the range of motion on either side of the body.
Avoid Stretching When:
- You have Acute Muscle Strain, give time for your muscles to fully recover before stretching them. Icing will often help heal injured muscles. Also, deep tissue massage will help speed up repair to damaged muscles. Always, consult with your trainer.
- You recently Fractured a Bone, stressing the area around the fractured bone can lengthen the healing process. Ask your doctor before stretching.
- You acquired Joint Sprains, the structures around the joint need to heal first before stretching as it may delay the recovery.