Whether waking or during the day, stretching is an excellent reflex to chase aches and relieve his mind. And if you decide to do sports without stretching, be sure that aches will make you misery for several days. Stretching, you are not unaware, have many assets. We present them in this article in order to show you the importance of this step.
Stretching: why is it so important?
If you are always recommended to do stretching after a sport activity, it is for a very good reason. They have many benefits provided that they are performed correctly.
A stretching session should be short (30 minutes maximum), each movement should last, indeed, only a few seconds.
By stretching at the end of the sessions, you greatly reduce the feeling of body aches and your flexibility improves. But the opposite effect can be triggered if your stretches are done forcefully and at the wrong time.
Stretching has several benefits, including:
- Prevent certain injuries
- Optimize the efficiency of the muscles
- Relax muscles and overcome pain
- To lengthen the extensibility of the muscles
- Hinder muscle stiffness after exercise
Stretching also reduces stress. The muscles have expandable receptors that constantly communicate with your brain, in terms of the overall level of tension. When the muscles are contracted or tense, the brain receives a signal, indicating that you are under stress. By stretching, the muscles relax and a sense of well-being is created, relieving stress.
To this advantage, one can also add the improvement of the coordination of the muscular movements, the stimulation of the blood circulation and the lightening of the muscular tensions after an intense training.
But if you skip stretching, your muscles may lose their elasticity, which can sometimes damage muscle tissue.
What do you need to know before stretching?
A lot of scientific studies have said that you do not stretch out until you have physical activity. This slows athletic performance as stretching weakens muscles and increases the risk of muscle damage. The perfect moment to stretch is after a workout.
Wait 15 minutes before starting the stretching session. Stretch between 10 and 15 minutes by performing movements smoothly and slowly. Hold your stretching position for approximately 30 seconds. While breathing deeply, focus on the area that is relaxing while you are stretching it. Do not practice convulsive movements. Do them very diligently. The perfect moment to do the stretching: at the end of the sports sessions
Very often, we do not distinguish the heating of stretching. Yet these two concepts are different from each other. The warm-up takes place before the effort and the stretching afterwards.
The warm-up allows to excite, to heat the muscles and to put them in the good conditions to support the physical effort in order to avoid sprains and strains. This step is necessary before starting the sport, whatever the chosen activity and its intensity. If you stretch before the sport session, the risk of injury increases. This is why stretching is reserved at the end of the sessions.
Some stretching exercises
• The basin and wide angle extension
Legs apart, shoulders low, perineum tight and navel tucked in, place hands on the back of the pelvis or waist. Tilt back by rounding your back and unrolling your neck. Come back and hold your ankles. With your back still straight, keep your legs straight and go back up.
• Lumbar stretching
Legs apart, turn the tips of your feet outward. Bend your knees and put your hands on your thighs. After turning your shoulders and head to the right and a little inward, reposition yourself as at the beginning keeping your back straight.
Repeat the same exercise on the left.
• The glutes
Being on the back, put your right foot on the reverse thigh. Then pull both legs toward you, leading them near the trunk to feel the stretch of the buttocks. Release for a few seconds then repeat the exercise by placing the left leg on the right thigh.
• Abdominals
On the floor, on your stomach, put your hands close to the body, more precisely at shoulder height and lift the trunk. For this exercise, consider the natural flexibility of your back.
• The exercise of the triangle
Position yourself by spreading and lengthening your legs. Extend the arms to the side then tumble one arm up while you put the other in support on the ankle. Resume your initial position and start again on the other side. Stop the stretching session for a better muscle recovery.
