Stretching Exercises: How to Stretch Properly

Why are Stretching Exercises Helpful? Did you know that vigorous exercise encourages the shortening and tightening of your muscles? Stretching exercises encourage lengthening of your muscles and their associated tendons to normal your muscle length tension ratio. Muscles shorten with use during exercise, general postural habits and are more likely with ageing and disuse. If you only use a small range of your muscle length range, your muscle will adapt over time and shorten to that length under premise of “use it or lose it” that your body naturally attunes itself. How Do Stretching Exercises Help? By lengthening your muscles via stretching, you promote flexibility and your ability to have a full range of motion about your joints. Studies comparing a warm-up that includes static stretching with a warm-up that does not include static stretching have shown that, although pre-exercise static stretching does improve flexibility, it does not appear to prevent injury during exercise. Therefore, the type of pre-exercise stretching technique needs to be an active style of stretch to prepare you for high load muscle activity during your sport rather than solely for tissue elongation. Not taking time to stretch, especially after exercise, can mean losing your ability to move freely or to perform the activities that are basic to your sport or daily needs. How to Stretch Properly? It is important to stretch your muscles only when they are warm, as cold muscles are more likely to tear. The stretches that you perform vary depending on whether your are preparing for exercise, recovering form exercise or rehabilitating from injury. Here are some general stretching guidelines. More info: Stretching Exercises