Sunday, March 30, 2014

The importance of Stretching


Happy Sunday everyone!  We spend time in the gym during the week putting our bodies through the stress of working out our muscles, but while we’re spending time focusing on improving our bodies we may be forgetting to incorporate one key exercise into our routine…stretching.

I know that I’m guilty of not stretching as often as I should, but I’ve been recently making it part of my weekly routine.  I’m naturally tight and I’ve been noticing that by stretching I’ve increased not only my flexibility, but my range of motion, which are giving me noticeable results.  I do a little stretching at the beginning and end of my workouts, but I like to use Sundays as a day that I set aside for doing some extended amount of time stretching.

As I mentioned, range of motion is just one benefit from stretching, but there are some others that will help you with seeing the results you’re seeking.  Although stretching isn’t the type of exercise that will release the growth hormone HGH, it will help prepare your body for the exercises that will.  The recovery benefits of stretching after a hard workout are also extremely helpful because stretching will help with realigning muscle fibers, which get entangled after a hard workout and can impede the recovery process.  There’s also a lactic acid build-up going on in your muscles after an intense workout, which stretching will help decrease that and help with soreness felt the next day.

So if you haven’t thought about incorporating stretching into your weekly workout routine, I highly recommend it, not only for the benefits I mentioned above, but because it can just help you feel better and relieve stress, which I’m sure all of us won’t object to that.  Have a great rest of your weekend and if you haven’t done it today already, get some stretching in!

 Photo: cooperinstitute.org


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