Stretching Exercises

Why is stretching important? Why are muscles required to be pliable? To begin with, flexibility is the muscles ability to withstand and overcome injuries. This mostly because flexibility is a product of muscle tension and muscle length, making it a major factor of mobility, which is the extent to which movement of a joint through its complete range of motion.

Mobility is the key to functional strength, the stronger you are through a complete range of motion, the lesser will be the chances of injury during workouts.

While stretching is not really the most entertaining part in a workout, flexibility is indeed very important for a well-rounded fitness regime even in a cardio strength training. Doing stretching workouts in your regime will go towards better flexibility, lesser tightness and make you more efficient at the workouts.

Stretching exercises help improve posture

Stretching often means keeping your muscles from becoming tight, giving you scope for complete posture. A proper posture reduces discomfort and keeps pain at bay.

Stretching Promotes Blood Circulation

Stretching is good for the muscles in terms of the blood volume that enters and exits. A good blood volume stands for nourishment and detox of waste from the muscle tissue. Better blood circulation improves the recovery time for muscles. Besides, better blood circulation works well for cells recovery and improves organ function. Blood hence, becomes more consistent and takes off the load from the heart too.

Stretching speeds up recovery after exercise

Stretching gets soreness off your muscles. An improved supply of nutrients also means faster recovery from joint and tissue injury.

Regular stretching exercises improve flexibility

Stretching improves the range of motion in your muscles and gives a lot of flexibility. An effective flexibility training program can improve your physical performance and help reduce your risk of injury. When you improve your range of motion, your muscles require less energy to deliver the same motion.

Stretching Eases Stress

Mental stress leads to muscle contraction, resulting in uneasiness and stress. This could result in a negative impact on the mind and body. Exercises that use stretching deliver powerful stress-busters to the brain and body. Waking up in the morning should be accompanied by stretching, that will provide a refreshing jump-start. Stretching gives flexibility to tight muscles that relaxes muscles and increases blood flow. It raises endorphin levels, and gives a feeling of euphoria.

Stretching exercises improve energy levels

Often times, when you suffer from insomnia, or when you suffer from sleepiness throughout your work day, all you need is a few stretches to get the system going right. Stretches revitalise your energy levels and give your mind freedom from stress.

Stretching exercises make everyday movement easier

Having a flexible body means we create more movement in our joints. Stretching also includes deep breathing, something that activates the parasympathetic nervous network. This means all tension is released from your body. As you stretch deeper, you move freely in your lives and bodies.

Stretching Reduces Back Pain

In case of back pain, one should perform these stretches first thing in the morning. These need to be done at least 2 - 3 times every week to show positive results for you.

• Flexion Stretch of Back

  Lie down face up. Gather both knees to the chest while flexing your head forward until you feel a light stretch across your neck.

• Knee to Chest

  Lie down, face up. Bend your knees and put your heels, on the floor, place both hands behind the knee and pull it close to the chest, feel the tug on your glutes and.

• Kneeling Lunge

  Come onto your knees, extend one leg so the foot comes flat on the floor, balance weight between both hips instead of putting it on one side. Put your hands on the thigh, and slowly bend forward and feel the stretch in the other leg. The stretch influences the hip flexors attached to the pelvis and impacts.

• Piriformis Muscle

  Lie face up, bend your knees and put both heels on the ground. Put one leg over the other leg, put the ankle on the knee which is bent, and then slowly pull the other knee toward the chest until you feel the stretch.

Stretching exercises improve athletic performance

An improved circulation of blood will increase nutrients supply across the body and help in removing harmful toxins from the body’s muscle tissues and improve recovery time. In the end, it improves joint motion range, using stretching just as well. An improved range of motion means athletes perform highly dynamic operations and sport specific techniques. An athlete can come from a variety of sport backgrounds, yet stretching is an amazing universal workout that will help in recovery and build-up both.

Stretching improves your performance in bed

Are one of those people who has ever experienced a painful cramp in leg during sex. Do you find some positions very challenging and impossible to achieve? This is a lot of stress stored in your body and mind. By doing stretches on a daily basis, you will let all the stress pass off and your sex drive and experience will improve many folds.

• Ankle-over-knee hip opener

  Lie face up on a plain surface, put your outer ankle right under your knee, at the top of your thigh. After this, simply interlock the fingers beneath your thigh, and slowly pull the leg towards yourself. Ensure that you keep the toe of your overlapped leg involved. This stretch will open up your hip flexor muscles. Once you have been sitting in this position for half minute, you should reverse the sides.

• Bridge pose

  This is a multi-pronged workout. It works on your chest, hips and neck and supplements your glutes, hamstring and back. To do the bridge pose properly, lie face up on the floor and put your feet at shoulder width. Your neck and shoulders should be stable on the ground. When you raise your hips, your hips and torso should be in a straight line.

• Jaw massage for better oral sex

  So, when you get down on your partner, you need to ensure that you don’t a cramp in your mouth muscles. To give the muscles of the jaw a proper chance, you need to massage your jaw properly.

  Open the mouth without forcing it much. Then massage the zone around your jaw that around your ear lobes. One can massage the area gently, or apply force with your fingers. Do it for half a minute and let it go.

• D. Forward Fold

  To raise the amount of stored stress in your hamstrings, neck, and back, gradually curl your body forwards and hang yourself loose. One may grab the ankles and push down raise the intensity of the stretch. Hold for maximum 1 minute. This move is very important people who have a good height and those whose lifestyle involves very less movement.

• Foot Cramp Remover

  To remove tension in your legs, you need to spend some time everyday standing on a golf ball, acupressure ball. There is a lot of tension embroiled in your leg. You should apply some pressure to the sole of your feet and feel the stress drop out.

  Mostly because the fascial tissue of your body is connected to feet soles. When releasing the pressure from this point, you can remove tension from your shoulders, neck, lower back, hamstrings. Put up to 3 minutes every day gathering your body weight on the little acupressure ball.

• Roped Calf Stretch

  Calves and hamstrings take a hit during sex when they are not fully relaxed. Calves get a completely relaxing stretch when you lie face up, gather the rope at the middle of your foot, and put your legs out and pull on the rope with a light hand.

  Workout this positioning until you locate a proper stretch for half a minute or one complete minute. When fully satisfied exercise on one side, reverse the rope towards the other side. When you do your calf stretches properly, your back and glutes also get worked.

• Spiky ball rolls for opening Glutes and Hips

  The spiky ball is useable on many body parts such as hips and glutes. You can use a regular massage ball, or a spiky massage ball to relieve the tension from your hips and glutes in a gradual and systematic way. When doing these exercises, ensure that you breathe deep and utilise your body weight to press into the exercise ball.

Static Stretching

Static stretching involves a stretch that is held in a challenging yet safe position for certain time duration. Most often this duration is between 10 seconds to half minute.

Static stretching is quite common and helps a lot in general fitness. It is safe and quite effective at improving body flexibility.

Yet, many specialists consider static stretching a lot less beneficial compared to dynamic stretching to deliver a wide range of motion.

Passive Stretching

Passive stretching means you’re using some sort of outside assistance to help you achieve a stretch. You can use anything for support such as your body weight or stretching device. While passive stretching causes you to relax your muscles, you are stretching and relying on external forces that hold you in static.

Mostly you don’t need to work too hard when doing a passive stretch. Yet, there is the risk of external forces being more powerful than your flexibility.

Dynamic Stretching

For dynamic stretching, we conduct the stretches along a challenging and comfortable motion in repeat mode, mostly 10-15 times. While dynamic stretches call for thoughtful coordination compared to static stretching, it is becoming a favourite among physical trainers due to its ability at improving range of motion and joint mobility in athletic activities.

Kindly remember that a dynamic stretch is different from the old-fashioned ballistic stretch. A dynamic stretch is largely of a controlled and deliberate motion, compared to the ballistic stretch that does not require control and goes with erratic motion. While there are certain unique benefits compared to the ballistic stretch, the dynamic stretch needs the care of a professional.

Ballistic Stretching

While quite popular amongst advanced athletes, ballistic stretching is an amazing option with the average person as well. This is a stretch based on the bouncing capability of our body. The ballistic system stretches muscles far and fast. You can carry out many stretches as ballistic stretches. For instance, the ballistic method is there when you touch your toes and bounce toward your foot.

Ballistic stretching often gets confused with dynamic stretching. Although both the techniques engage physical movement at the stretch, they are different in function. During a dynamic stretch we don’t push our muscles beyond their average motion range. For instance, an arm circle.

Active Isolated Stretching

The theory behind active isolated stretching is that when a muscle gets stretched too far, or too quick, or for a very long duration, it delivers a protective reaction called the myotatic reflex. This makes the muscle recoil automatically to prevent the muscle from tears. It takes 3 seconds of a stretch to activate this mode.

Therefore, active isolated practices require the natural range of motion to be exceeded before the myotatic reflex is switched on. Once you have come back to the initial position, you could do 10 reps. The other factor behind active isolation is contraction of the antagonist muscles to make space for targeted muscles to relax. This also brings focus on the assisted aspect of active isolated stretches. Here the muscle is made to move through the last few degrees of motion by using an eight-foot rope which is wrapped on the foot as per the direction of the stretching.

Isometric Stretching

Isometric Stretching involves quite intense static positions instead of passive stretching. Here you need to contract the stretch in the muscle while an external resistance keeps your body static. It is a highly advanced form of stretching that adds to muscular energy. External resistance can come from a training partner or an independent trainer.

Stretching Exercises Help Increase Height

Our spine is made of 33 vertebrae. Each vertebra has a fluid filled intervertebral disc which is a cushion in a way. When these discs are compressed, the spaces become smaller. When discs expand, it makes you taller.

Something as simple is walking after waking up can cause a little bit compression in your spine. So, does being overweight and lifting heavy weights. People become short at day time and tall during sleeping. Gravity also causes compression in the long run.

Stretching Before Exercise

Under certain situations, stretching before exercise is not known to curb muscle soreness after exercise, or improve your performance. A pre-exercise stretch in some situations can hamper performance, such as sprint speed, in studies. The most likely reason is that holding the stretch tires out your muscles, especially when you overdo it.

You should warm up by doing dynamic stretches, which are like your workout but at a lower intensity. A good warm-up before a run could be a brisk walk, walking lunges, leg swings, high steps, or butt kicks. Start slowly, and gradually increase the intensity.

The best time to stretch is after exercise, when your muscles are warm

It is safe when you stretch warmed up muscles. Warm muscles are comparatively relaxed and allow for a good range of motion. Yet, when you are walking slowly or jogging for small time durations, you only need to sweat before your warm is considered complete. Over doing your warm up can mean that you end up burning a lot more energy than required. Over doing the stretch can also cause your muscle fibres to tire out and not respond to the actual training.

There’s only one right way to stretch

There are actually more than half a dozen stretching methods. These include stretches that require you to have a trainer or training partner, as well as stretches that can be done in isolation.

Stretching should always be uncomfortable

No. If stretching is causing pain, then you must be going too hard. Rather, move into a stretch and stop only when you feel the tension. Inhale deep when you hold the stretch for half minute. Relax and repeat the motion, try moving deeper during the second stretch.

You should hold a stretch for at least 15 seconds

Most athletes and trainers agree that holding a stretch for half minute is appropriate.

Safety

Remember that stretching with too much vigour and holding long or stretching till it hurts is not a good idea. Stretching should only feel nice. When it comes to static stretching, you only stretch across a muscle's complete motion range and do it until there is only resistance and no pain.

Do it Regularly

One must stretch minimum thrice a week if you want to be flexible. One session should be around 10 - 20 minutes, and each stretch should be held for minimum 10 seconds and should be repeated at least thrice. Some studies prove that stretches can be held for up to 2 minutes. But there is no clear consensus on this.

Avoid Bouncing

Most often, people are advised against ballistic stretching which involves bouncing, repeat movement etc. However, ballistic stretch is safe as long as you make it slow and relaxed. Various professional athletes say that controlled ballistic stretching prepares muscles for the sport they are about to play.

Stretch Opposing Muscles

To stretch opposing muscles in your arms and legs, use static stretches along with the active-isolated approach to stretching and neuromuscular facilitation. When doing active-isolated stretching, one needs to start isolating with single muscle and stretch it through contraction of the opposite muscle. Neuromuscular facilitation is doable both with/without a trainer. You simply contract muscles against resistance from the same.

Flexibility is the range of motion inside the joint at various motion planes. Inside each joint there is an optimal motion range which is required for good performance. Stretching is the act of elongating the muscles so as to give you better range of motion. You have already been introduced to dynamic stretching that is as amazing as a pre-exercise stretch. A lot of people believe that static stretching is a time waste and hardly ever prevents injury.

A seasoned athlete with the correct range of motion does not gain much from stretching, yet I think that if you want to improve your range of motion, static stretching is great.

Main benefits of stretching:

• Increased movement efficiency.
• Decreased risk of injury.
• Increased blood supply and nutrients to joint structures.
• Increased neuromuscular coordination.
• Decreased risk of low back pain.
• Reduced muscular tension.
• Improved balance and postural awareness.