Stretching is a very important part of your overall physical fitness. As you get older, no matter what age, your flexibility decreases. Decreased flexibility leads to less range of motion, and that’s not good for anybody. Not stretching your muscles leads them to shorten and tighten, which decreases the range of motion around that joint. Just think how hard it would be to lift your arms over your head if your shoulder flexibility was less than it should be. Imagine your tight muscles and suddenly trying to use them in a game of tennis or going for a run or some other activity. They’re not ready for it and too tight to do the things you want to do—bad combination! So how do we combat that? By stretching!
When should you stretch?
Ideally, every day and after you’ve warmed up your body a bit. You want blood pumping and circulating through the body and heat in the muscles and tissues that you’re stretching so that you’re not stretching cold tissues that won’t have the elasticity needed to stretch your full range of motion.
Recovery
Stretching helps with the recovery process and cooling down the body immediately after a work out. It also helps lower your blood pressure immediately following a work out more quickly than not stretching.
Posture
Can you believe that stretching is good for your posture? It is! Things can get tight of you sit all day, like your chest and hips. But stretching can help open these areas up and this leads to better, less-stooped posture.
It’s also important in injury prevention.
If you have supple, elastic muscles and other tissues, they’ll be able to handle stresses better than anything tight or stiff. If you work out, this can help prevent any of those injuries caused by stiffness, or if you don’t, it can still help with everyday activities that may cause some of those pesky, acute injuries that you get when you bend the wrong way or pick something up that you weren’t ready for.
How long should you stretch?
At least 10 seconds per move, but work on increasing that. However, there isn’t any evidence that holding a stretch longer than 30 seconds is beneficial, so 10-30 seconds per move. Don’t bounce, just move into the stretch gently until you feel tension and hold it there where it’s uncomfortable, but not hurting. You can do that each day, ideally after a warm-up or after your workout.
So now that you know about stretching, get to it!
Examples of short warm-up and cool down: Warm up & cool down