Healthy Habits: Stretching Exercises
Stretching is a form of physical exercise in which a specific muscle or tendon (or muscle group) is deliberately flexed or stretched in order to improve the muscle’s felt elasticity and achieve comfortable muscle tone [ study link ]. It keeps the muscles flexible, strong, and healthy and helps to maintain a healthy range of motion in the joints. Different kinds of stretching techniques include static, dynamic, active, passive, slow movement and ballistic stretching.
The importance of stretching is often overlooked as we humans tend to think stretching as a synonym to splits and complex yoga poses. The benefits of a healthy stretching habit span far wider than contortionist skills, though, and have a major impact on the quality of life as we age. A healthy stretching habit will focus on improving several aspects of your wellbeing and recovery.
NOTE: Only Flexibility type Workouts in your Apple Health app counts towards your Stretching Habit in the Healthzilla app.
Research on the benefits of stretching
Here’s an overview of the latest science on stretching.
Maintaining your range of motion with age
As you age, your muscles naturally begin to tighten up, and as a consequence, you might not be able to perform normal daily activities such as picking up something you dropped on the floor. Regular stretching will help you maintain and improve your range of motion so you can perform your normal day-to-day activities until old age and thus maintain a good quality of life. [study link] [study link].
Stretching can prevent chronic conditions and pain
Tightened muscles may result in conditions like lower back pain or sciatica – a problem with the sciatic nerve that can cause pain, numbness and burning sensations down the back of the thigh, lower leg and foot. Regular stretching will loosen tightened muscles and send them back to normal length and therefore help you protect yourself from chronic conditions and pain [study link].
Injury prevention and workout performance improvement
If you start your workout without any warmup and dynamic stretching, you’re calling tightened muscles for activity, and thus they are weak and unable to extend all the way. This leads to an increased risk for joint pain, strains, and muscle damage while you’re working out. Dynamic stretching prior to your workout will help you prevent injuries and increase power, strength and workout performance during a subsequent exercise session [study link][study link].
Enhancing your recovery with stretching
Post-exercise stretching may provide several beneficial effects on your recovery. These effects range from decreasing muscle soreness and stiffness, increasing flexibility, increasing local blood flow, and decreasing neural excitability [study link].
Increasing your alertness level with stretching
During stretching, your body senses the change in muscle length and movement. As a result, your body begins to prepare itself to become active by increasing blood and nutrient flow throughout the body which helps you feel more awake and alert [study link].
Methods and programs for stretching
You can build a healthy, sustainable stretching habit with small, incremental steps. Remember – this is a game of patience! Below are some tips and recommendations on how to incorporate stretching into your daily routine.
Stretching through the day
Start with about 10 minutes of stretching a day, focusing on the major muscle groups: upper body (arms, shoulders, neck), back, and lower body (thighs, calves, ankles). Remember to warm up the muscles beforehand to make the tissue more pliable and amenable to change and to avoid injuries.
Incorporate short stretching sessions to your workday – standing up from your desk and performing even a few minutes of stretching will have a positive impact on your health [study link].
Make stretching part of your me-time in the early evening – let it be Netflix, a movie, an audiobook or a podcast that’s providing the entertainment, time will pass by quickly.
Stretching with workouts
Add a few dynamic stretches to your pre-workout routine targeting the muscles that will be called upon during the workout [study link]. Avoid static stretching prior to the workout [study link], [study link], [study link].
Add a few post-workout stretches to your regime immediately after the workout as your muscles are warm and less injury-prone [study link].
Tools for stretching
A timer will help you keep track of time. Research [study link] shows that 30 seconds is an effective time of stretching for enhancing your flexibility.
Try out stretching apps or go for stretching classes at the local gym for more inspiration as you progress on your stretching journey.
It may have taken you many months or years to get tight muscles, so you're not going to be perfectly flexible after a few sessions. Research on fascia [ study link ] has shown that “rewiring” your fascia and completely changing your mobility and range-of-motion in a permanent and long-lasting way takes about 6-24 months – and you'll have to continue working on it to maintain it!
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