Have you considered stretching as a gentle approach to start your day? Stretching is one aspect of exercise that many neglect far too often. However, some advantages to stretching may entice you to incorporate it into your regimen.
Besides enhancing flexibility, stretching may help reduce post-exercise pain and boost posture, according to some research.
Read on to learn more about how stretching can boost your fitness.
1. Helps Prepare Your Body for Exercise
Stretching should be a part of everyone’s home workout routine because flexibility is one of the essential aspects of fitness. It prevents injuries, improves circulation, and prepares our bodies for house or gym workouts.
Experts recommend incorporating a morning stretch routine into your warm-up practice before any athletic event, competitive or not. A thorough athletic warm-up should include 5 to 10 minutes of low- to moderate-intensity swimming, jogging, or riding, followed by dynamic stretching.
Stretching increases the range of motion and flexibility by lengthening soft tissues like muscles and ligaments and reducing stiffness, helping your muscles loosen up and prepare for training.
2. Gets You Energized for an Active Day
One way to feel more energized in the morning is to get moving! Stretching is not only beneficial before and after exercise. It improves suppleness and eases any muscle aches from a restless night. Stretching also helps to enhance blood flow while preparing your body for an active day.
Your body and mind may benefit from exercise and morning stretch. You’ll feel better when your heart and lungs are stimulated and happy hormones are produced. Exercise, along with a morning stretch, may benefit your body and the overall mood for the day.
3. Helps Improve Posture
Stretching can help with balance. Many people spend at least some waking hours seated at a computer or staring at a phone or device, leading to tight muscles and bad posture.
Stretching puts those muscles into action, strengthening them and forcing them to do their job again. As a result, you’ll notice your posture improving. Combine that with the added advantage of stretches that relieve back tension, and you’ll be able to stand and sit up straight in no time.
By stretching every day, you can improve posture by lengthening specific muscles that tend to tighten up when you remain in a chair all day at work.
4. Helps Improve Mobility
While achieving aerobic endurance and muscle growth is fantastic, you must also consider flexibility. Stretching can help improve mobility. Contrary to the assumption that runners or gymnasts only do stretching, mobility and flexibility are essential for non-athletes.
If you’ve always wondered how to improve the use of your muscles and joints during workouts, flexibility may be the aspect to consider. Several factors may affect the ability to move as you used to, including aging and a sedentary lifestyle. Stretching, according to research, increases the extensibility of soft tissues and is thus extensively used to improve joint mobility and reverse contractures. In addition to improving your range of motion, stretching may drastically decrease your chance of injury.
5. May Help Relieve Stress
Many of us begin our days by stretching before we even get out of bed. Involuntary muscle stretching is a trait seen in most animals to alleviate muscle tension.
Stretching is one of the few activities that feel so good after inactivity. It can create a sense of calm and even improve circulation. If appropriately stretched, your muscles hold less tension, which can help you feel less stressed. Stretching decreases muscular tension, reversing the pattern of anxiety, tightening, and pain. Serotonin levels have been shown to rise after stretching. This hormone helps stabilize our mood, reduce stress, and make us happy, decreasing depression and anxiety.
According to Harvard Health Publishing, the tension in your muscles manifests as tightness. When you relax those muscles, you can tap into your body’s capacity to release mental stress. Stretching right before bedtime will even make you sleep more comfortably.
6. It May Reduce the Risk of Injury
Stretching before an exercise can help you avoid injury, and dynamic stretching is part of a good warm-up. (along with light movement that gets your heart rate up). Dynamic stretching warms up the muscles, joints, and tendons while briefly increasing the range of motion. This, in turn, can assist you in performing the moves in your exercise with proper body positioning.
More research has found that stretching primarily reduces injuries by improving flexibility. While immobility and sedentary lifestyles can result in long-term injuries, range of motion exercises can safeguard the body. Increased flexibility will not avoid injuries on its own.
Without stretching, muscles shorten and become rigid. When you activate the muscles, they become weak and incapable of fully extending. With that, you are more likely to experience joint pain and strains.
7. May Help Relieve Post-Exercise Aches and Pains
When you attempt a new exercise, raise heavier weights, or run steeper hills, your muscles are subjected to strain and micro-tearing at the cellular level, which can cause soreness. When tight muscles cannot respond effectively to changes in activity or intensity, stretching before working out can help muscles move more effectively. Static stretching, or maintaining a stretch without moving, can be done before exercise but is most beneficial afterward.
It’s crucial to note that Stretching isn’t a miracle cure; complete recovery could take days, whether you stretch or not. In addition, you should never stretch if you have acute muscular pain. Intense stretching can enlarge the tiny tears in your muscle fibers even more. The lower and more strenuous the exercise, the more cautious you should be about stretching afterward.
8. May Improve Overall Athletic Performance and Health
Stretching can help you become more flexible, a critical fitness component, improve your posture and lessen stress and bodily aches, among other things.
You have more movement freedom when a joint can move through its complete range of motion. According to research, dynamic stretches can help your muscles prepare for physical activity. Additionally, it might enhance how well you move during a workout or athletic contest.
If you can maintain regular stretching practice, you may notice an increased range of motion and a performance improvement. And this flexibility gained from stretching can help you perform better in athletic activities.
In Conclusion
Regular stretching can benefit anyone, whether new to exercise or seasoned athletes. Besides increasing your range of motion, incorporating a few minutes of stretching can enhance your posture and ease stress. However, while stretching feels great, don’t let it take over your fitness regimen. Balance is essential in exercise. Make sure you leave enough time for the other aspects of physical activities.
This is all nonsense. There is no health benefit to static stretching.