The Benefits of Stretching
Aging makes a person’s muscles become increasingly inelastic;
therefore proper stretching can make substantial improvements in
muscle elasticity. Stretching tired, old, worn out muscles adds new
vitality to life and puts a spring and added life back into your
step. But more importantly, proper stretching helps prevent injury;
when muscles are stretched and limber you are less likely to
experience muscle pulls and strains, or even worse, tears.
Stretching,
when done right, reduces your workload by removing tightness
allowing your limbs to move more freely. It carries oxygen to sore
muscles and also quickly removes toxins from muscles enhancing
muscle recovery from stress, work or injury. Stretching can act as a
deep massage technique because it activates muscle fibers during the
process. Although a regular routine of daily stretching is the
ideal, stretching can be done just about anywhere, at anytime –
while waiting in line at the airport, during a quick break at the
office, or even while riding in the car. It is especially valuable
right after a good work out or exercise because stretching will
allow the muscles to increase blood flow and oxygenation from an
increased heart rate creating a literal flushing of toxins right out
of your body.
Stretching will increase
your flexibility thus maximizing your performance in
whatever you do; for example, it can work wonders on bad
backs by doing a series of stretches laying flat on your
back and then pulling your knee up toward your chest,
alternating between one and both knees. Stretching also
helps improve your posture as well as enhancing better
body alignment. Bottom line, stretching
creates a more flexible body; a flexible body are more
efficient, enjoys greater rang of motion, can be more
easily trained to strength and endurance, is less prone
to injury, recovers more quickly from workouts or
stress, and simply feels better. Stretching is truly
relevant throughout your life.
Don’t be too worried about
over-stretching; stretching is what we would call the
“warming up” process for other types of activity.
The muscle can stretch to 1.6 times its length, to go
any further would create a lot of pain, so Mother Nature
has already solved the problem of going too far in
stretching. Remember, if you are experiencing a lot of
pain with the stretch then you are over doing it. The
trick is consistency and repetition. A good visual to
see the benefits of stretching is to take a regular
rubber and then gently pull it as far as it will
“naturally” go to its maximum range without tearing
it – pull it quickly, but not fast avoiding jerky
action, stressing the muscles using rapid jerking
motions will more times than not break the rubber band.
Notice how far you were able to stretch it the first
time. Now, do it again, and repeat this process several
times noticing how far you are able to increase the
length of the rubber band each time you pull. This is
what it is like with your muscles, the more they are
stretched, the more you are able to encompass.
How To
Stretch
Isolating muscles and
stretching them by themselves is far better than trying
to stretch several muscles all at the same time, like
stretching your back muscles and leg muscles by sitting
on the floor and trying to put your head between your
knees. When you stretch, approach it like the rubber
band example, quickly but gently stretch the muscle
until you reach its limit of range in motion. Then give
it a little boost or assist. You can use your hands, or
a belt, or a piece of rope to loop around the extremity
being stretched to gently pull. How far should you
stretch? It has been described as going to the point of
“awareness” (Isolated Active Stretching by
Jim and Phil Wharton) but a little less that pain. Go
until you begin to feel a slight irritation – as
already mentioned, it should never hurt. Hold the
stretch for about 2 seconds, longer than that is not
necessary. When you stretch a muscle, the body will
naturally react by contracting it as a way of protecting
itself from being overstretched or ripped. The name of
this is “myotatic reflex.” You want to avoid this
whenever possible; Signs of discomfort should signal an
immediate backing-off. If you are able to stretch your
muscle for 2 seconds without having it contract then you
have succeeded in extending your range of motion.
Eventually you should plan on
doing 10 repetitions of each stretch, with each stretch
taking less than two minutes. If you are stretching 10
muscles (for example, a good start would be claves,
hamstring, back, arms, abs, buttocks, neck, hands, feet
and face) then your stretching workout should only take
about 20 minutes. Stretching is ideal right before and
after exercise. If you are not actively exercising then
stretching is ideal first thing in the morning and just
before going to bed. You should stretch every day. If
you are the busy type with limited time on hand for
stretching routines, then you can limit the number of
stretches to about 5 – 10 minutes is not too great a
sacrifice for improved health and general all-around
feeling good.
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