subject: Learn How Daily Stretching Can Improve Health and Wellness [print this page] Learn How Daily Stretching Can Improve Health and Wellness
Stretching is one of the most crucial activities that you can do before working out or beginning any sort of athletic task. This is a fact for organized sporting activities like soccer and tennis, but it is equally important for casual physical activities, including hiking, jogging or just visiting the health club. Most people put off stretching because they do not wish to dedicate the extra time, find it to be boring, or believe that it will not really help. Absolutely, nothing could possibly be more from the truth. A stretching program can help you in many ways, from injury avoidance to recovery to performance.
Injury Prevention
The most important reason why you need to practice stretching would be to keep your body from an injury. Normally, this refers to a pulled muscle. If your muscles have not had the opportunity to loosen up and become limber before you start your activity, they are not going to be ready for the increased stress that they are sure to encounter. This can be twice as accurate when you have not been active the whole day, and have been sitting at work.
Consider this in the same manner that you would think of leaping out of bed in the morning, and starting to run before turning off the alarm. You will not be fully awake, and your mind would be reeling from the abrupt movement. In the same manner, your muscles have to wake up, if they have not received a lot of use, even if your brain is already awake.
Pulled Muscles
It is possible to pull muscles in any part of the body, though the calf muscles and the thigh muscles will be the most frequent for runners. This can happen whenever you attempt to turn or cut, as you might in a game of football, but it may also happen while you are walking in a straight line. Your muscles have to be in a position to twitch and react in the blink of an eye to assist you to maintain your balance, and they cannot do that if you have not stretched.
Pulled Hip Flexor Muscle
Another common injury that stretching out may avoid is a pulled hip flexor muscle. It is the muscle that runs up through the inside of your thigh to near your groin. Sometimes it is an extremely bad injury since it requires a lengthy time to recover after it has been injured. This makes it tough to lift your legs, which could have a huge impact on how effective you are able to run, or if you can run whatsoever. Additionally, this muscle is very quick to re-injure. Many people think that this injury has recovered and set out to jog, only to damage it once more because they have not stretched properly.
How You Can Help Yourself
A stretching program needs to be done often; it should always be done for at least ten minutes before you start any sort of athletic activity. Once you have started, you need to stretch once more if you take a break. A lot of sports activities involve rests for halftime as well as between quarters. It is best to stretch your muscles again each time this type of break occurs to help keep your muscles limber and ready to go. They can tighten up after inactivity because they will be tired. It is crucial not to run back out on the court or field when they have stiffened up, or you could potentially risk an even greater injury than at the outset of the event.
Many people will just stretch to begin the day. They will do it on a daily basis, once they get up. This is an exceptional way to get the blood moving and prepare the muscles for the activity of work and play. While this is not strictly required, it is still recommended. Ten minutes of stretching will go a long way toward helping you remain healthy regardless of what sort of event comes your way.
