10 Things You Should Know About Stretching

Before fitness training, always remember to do warm-up or stretching exercises to prevent accidents or to enhance the output during the training. Apart from preventing injuries and increasing one’s limit, it is also said that stretching is good for a tired body and also for a stressed mind and spirit. There are a number of precautionary measures that can serve as guidelines when doing fitness exercises. Below are some of them .

• To avoid injuries and increase your flexibility, stretch before and after workout. Everyone knows that stretching before workout prevents injuries during the exercises, but only few people know that stretching after workout, when muscles are still warm, can increase flexibility.

• There are days when your body may be too tired that you may have to consider reducing your range of motion. Do not force yourself to do exercises that you are not yet capable of just because there are people who can do it. Increase your limits slowly. Listen to your body.

• Stretch regularly to continually increase your range of movements and your level of flexibility and strength.

• Hold your stretching position for more than 1 minute to increase flexibility. While holding your position for 30 seconds is enough for warm ups, holding each position for at least 1 minutes will develop your body’s flexibility.

• Work slowly in increments instead of proceeding to doing the hardest exercise or position right of the bat.

• When stretching, hold that position for several seconds, and then slowly relax. You may do this exercise repeatedly this way. Bouncing or forcing yourself into a position during stretching can strain or damage some joints or muscles.

• For some people, even if they have strong bodies, they tend to neglect the neck when working out of stretching. Make sure that you have stretched or warmed up all muscle groups. Stretching the neck muscles can be as simple as placing the palm of one’s hand against the front of the head and pushing it. Then, do the same to the sides and the back of the head.

• Learn to rest. Rest in between sets and stations to make sure that the body has enough time to recover its energy. Also, it is advisable that you don’t work the same muscle groups consecutively for two days. The muscles grow during the period when you rest and not when you are working out.

• Music may help you when you want to train for longer periods or to increase your intensity. Why not use use an mp3 players or radio receivers ? Just make sure that you brought your headset with you so you don’t disturb people who don’t like to listen to music while exercising.

• Do aerobic exercises to strengthen your heart. These physical activities use oxygen for fuel and include cardiovascular exercises such as running, swimming or skipping rope.