Stretching…do you do it?

As a result of many exercises our muscles shorten so we need to return them to their original length and decrease tension, otherwise our muscles become tight and there starts to be an imbalance in our body.  When this happens we are on the road to injury.   We need to ensure that our muscles maintain a full range of motion and to do this we need to spend time stretching.

It’s not purely exercise that causes tight muscles, sitting at a desk for hours on end with bad posture or carrying large or heavy objects can result in the need to stretch.

A few tips on stretching:-

• Always stretch with warm muscles - ie after some exercises or a bath or shower.
• Stretch to the point of mild tension - make sure the body part you are stretching is not juddering
• As a general rule hold the stretch for 10 seconds to maintain range of motion.  If you need to develop range of motion then you will need to hold the stretch for longer, up to 30 seconds.
• Seek advice from a fitness professional on how to stretch.

This entry was posted on 05/10/2009 at 09:08 pm and is filed under Latest from Ann. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.