Everyone knows that workout is a part of healthy living, but do you consider a routine of proper stretching as a part of the exercise. Some people do not have enough time to do stretch before doing exercise. Everyone can learn to do stretch, regardless of flexibility or age. Stretching should be a part of everyday routine, whether you do a workout or not. It does not take much time but stretching can help to bring effective results.
Benefits of Stretching
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Stress relief
If you do not do regular practice, then also stretching benefits to ease your stress linked to pain. A combination of various stretching workouts with deep breathing helps to release tension in the muscles and contribute to relaxing effects. Stress affects blood flow negatively, which increases muscle tension. Both emotional and physical stress causes your muscles to the firm in response.
Stretching every day helps to boost blood flow and ease muscle tension. Improved blood circulation also impacts on brain and mood. Typical areas, which may suffer from stress-linked pain are the upper back, neck, and shoulder. Stretching these muscles helps to produce a relaxing feeling.
Less Anxiety
Combining a variety of stretching workout into your everyday fitness routine helps to work wonder for your physical and mental health. Stretching also gives work to mental break for your brain, which can help to lower anxiety by providing calming effects to mind. You can make the stretches more effective by performing meditations and keeping mindfulness.
Stretching involves deep breathing, breathing during a stretch helps to keep your mind with constant thoughts. Deep inhales and exhales during stretching helps to calm down your mind and prevent anxiety and dark thoughts.
Relieve Sore Muscles
Stretching is a good solution for those suffering from the sore muscles. The morning after a good workout at the gym can cause pain. Performing stretch before exercise helps to prevent muscle soreness. It boosts the blood flow and nutrient supply to your tired muscles and lowers the soreness naturally. The improved blood circulation also helps to lower the times to recover after a strenuous workout or other physical pain.
Regular stretching also promotes the range of motion in your joints, which further ease the muscle tension.
Improved posture
Sitting on a desk for long hours is a must for office jobs. But it will affect the posture of the body. Bending on a computer, try to meet deadlines may cause trouble in your body posture. Tight and tense muscles are also weak, which compromises the body posture. Stretching helps to muscle loose and spine level. Your posture will improve as you stop feeling lazy.
Reduce Injury Risk
Extending your muscles is a crucial piece of warming up before doing an exercise, as it is helpful for the brain to move into the exercise mode.
Once you are ready for one hour before exercise, you will be less likely to get injured by your errors.
Doing dynamic stretching workout serves to prevent the immediate injuries occurred by cold and tight muscles. You also feel focused on the workout.
Before doing exercise, spend some time for yoga poses of hip-opening to prevent muscle stiffness and provide relief to back pain.
Better flexibility
Many people think flexibility as not necessary, but there is no denying that having more flexibility helps to promote better exercise.
Stretching increases the flexibility of muscles and makes your exercise better. For example, stretching hip flexors before performing a workout will help to do a deeper squat.
Less mobility in everyday lives tightens the muscles and makes us more likely to sudden injuries. Limited mobility in daily life helps to tighten muscles and more flexible. You can perform everyday tasks more efficiently and reduce muscle stiffness that occurs from aging.
Relieve Back Pain
Stretching also benefits from relieving chronic lower back pain. Research has proved that 12 weeks of intense stretching reduce the pain medication need, and significantly improves the back pain.
Tight hamstrings may also responsible for back pain as they boost the muscle’s stress near the spine. They also lower the range of motion of muscles, which can make it more exposed to muscle injury and strain. Stretching makes your back muscles stronger, heals ongoing injuries, and prevents future back pain risk.
Proper Stretching Techniques
Breathe Evenly
Stretching helps to regulate breathing. Inhale and exhale for three seconds each, which helps your body to relax while loosening muscles and warming up your body.
Warm-Up Before Doing Stretch
Before you follow a long workout routine, it is essential to increase your body temperature with warm-up workouts. It boosts blood flow to muscles, ligaments, and tendons and makes them more elastic and less prone to injury and damage.
Skipping or jogging lightly for 30 seconds is sufficient to increase heart rate and loosen your muscles. However, do not overdo the intensity of the warm-ups.
Moving While Stretching
When you jump around while stretching, it causes some tears in the muscles, which become scar tissue. Over time, this scar tissue hardens and reduces flexibility.
Jumping during stretching also prevents complete muscle loosening. Try your best to manage the balance instead of swinging all over. Use a barre to assist the beginning and then gently do some stretch on your own. Try to stay calm and balance as much as possible.
Don’t Push Too Far
While many individuals accept that you have to feel the burn while stretching, be mindful so as not to drive it excessively far. Stretching is intended to loosen up your muscles, not stun them into relaxing up. The objective is to build adaptability. Holding a stretch for a long time or propelling yourself too hard can lift the agony, or more terrible, cause a physical issue.
Stretching Time
Make sure to keep each stretch for 30 seconds. It is a good time to give rest to your muscles with every stretching workout. Relaxed muscles are necessary so that they catch again after the stretch. Thirty seconds is the correct time to relax the tension built up in the body.
Check-In with A Doctor
Before you start any stretching every day, talk to your physical therapist, who can suggest the body parts you need to work on and give a particular workout to target those muscles. If you have any pain in the body, it would be good to check with your physical therapist before adding different stretching moves.
Stretch in The Morning
The stretching move helps to improve the agility of the body and enable you to get more work done in daily life. Consider doing a few simple stretches in the morning. It not only wakes your body up but also keeps your active whole day.
Stretch Both Sides Equally
You need to perform every exercise on your both side for the equal amount of time or number of reps to loosen up your muscles and raise flexibility in the entire body. If one side has not stretched correctly, you may develop a risk of injury.
Before and After An Exercise
Doing stretch at the beginning and end of exercise helps to keep your body loose. It will ensure the body is not overworking and provide time to cool down after a workout.
Here are some good stretching exercises to improve your daily performance to relieve muscles.
Basic Stretching Exercises
Downward Dog
The downward dog is a standing pose of yoga used to develop strength in the whole body. It stretches out the shoulders, hamstrings, arches, hands, spine, and calves to give a full-body workout.
It offers support to insomnia, fatigue, and headaches. Since it is a gentle inversion stretch, blood moves toward the brain and calm down the nervous system, reduces stress, and increases memory.
If you are experiencing carpal tunnel syndrome, pregnancy, or vertigo, then you should not do a downward dog workout. If you have raised blood pressure or back, arms, or shoulders injury, this stretch can raise pain.
How to Do It?
- Go down using your hand and knees, make sure the wrists are in level with shoulders, your palms should face down. Place your knees in level with hips.
- Gently raise your knees over the ground, push your pelvis up. Breath evenly as you perform this. Balance knees straight.
- Stretch your arms outward, make sure to have hands firm over the ground. Do not flex your elbows. Now your body is an inverted V shape.
- Push upon the ground, balance your feet and hands in place throughout.
- Keep this pose for around 16-20 seconds.
- Exhale as you bend elbows and knees back over the ground.
- Perform 2-sets of 10-reps.
Side Bends
Side twists eliminate pressure from your stomach, rib muscles, and the intercostal muscles within each rib. This permits your ribs to reach their full range of movement, giving a simple place for the lungs to contract and grow.
How to Do It?
- Stand and keep your feet level to hips-width. Place your arms stretched outward to sides.
- As you breathe out, raise your right hand on the head, get it to the left side. As you perform this, flex your waist to the left also. Slide to left hand down to reach the left leg.
- Be in this pose for five seconds.
- Breath in and go back to the beginning position. Repeat the same for the other side.
- Perform 15-reps of this stretch for both sides and make it a complete 30 reps.
- You can also sit and do side bends.
- Perform 2-sets of 15 reps each.
Seated Spinal Twist
The seated spinal twist raises the flexibility of the spine by relaxing the back muscles. This workout improves the digestion and relieves back pain, menstrual discomfort, and sciatica. It also improves your blood flow to all organs. Avoid this stretching if you are suffering from lower back pain.
How to Do It?
- Sit with a straight back and stretch legs in the front direction.
- Slide your right leg near you and bend it at your knee. Raise it and keep it on the other side of your left leg.
- Turn your waist to the right side, with your head facing back.
- Stretch left hand on the right knee, with your elbow flexed and hand pointing upward.
- Keep right hand strongly on the ground behind your back.
- Perform 3-sets of 5-reps on both sides.
Extended Child Pose
The Extended child pose helps to stretch the upper body by focusing on your shoulders and back. Place your knees apart stretches the internal organs while putting them together provide support to the torso and relieve back pain.
How to Do It?
- Sit down with bent knees.
- Flexed forward, stretch your arms outward to touch the floor with palm.
- Place your arms straight and back stretched.
- Hold this pose for 30-seconds before going back stretched.
- Keep this pose for around 30-seconds before going back to the beginning point.
- Perform 1-set of 5-reps.
Lower Back Stretches
These workout helps to relieve the lower back pain and stretch the muscles in that part. They also tone your glutes and stretch out the linked tissues and muscles.
How to Do It?
- Lie down over your back and get your knees upward to the chest and hold them in place with arms.
- Place your head and neck over the ground, make sure not to lift them.
- Hold this stretch for 30 seconds.
- Perform one set of 4-reps.
The Full Plank
How To Do It?
- The full plank stretched the complete body and boost overall flexibility and reduce muscle tension. Lie face down, keeping hand level with shoulders, palm facing down, and toes require to be bent.
- Slowly raise yourself over your palms and toes, making sure your arms are stretched straight. Manage your body parallel to the ground and back level.
- Look up and breathe evenly.
- Hold this pose for 30-seconds.
- Perform 2-sets of one rep.
Horse Rider Pose
How To Do It
- Bend on your knees, keep your upper body straight.
- Slide with your left leg outward, place it bent at the knees, with left foot flat on the ground.
- Stretch arms on your head and combine your palms in a prayer pose.
- Stretch your arms back, flexing the upper body behind while facing upwards.
- Hold this pose for 30-seconds. Repeat on the other side.
- Perform one set of 5-reps on both sides.
Morning Stretches
Morning stretches help establish the pace for your day. They boost your everyday performance and are an extraordinary method to shake off any lethargy. These activities loosen up your body and loosen up your muscles.
Arm Stretch
This workout stretches out the arms, fingers, and elbows.
How To Do It?
- Sit down over the ground with legs criss-cross. Balance your upper body straight.
- Stretch out the right arms and flex your hand so that your palm faces outward and fingers point upward.
- Hold the right hand with the left hand.
- Flex your right hand behind with your left hand and hold the pose for 10-seconds.
- Repeat these moves to both sides.
- Perform 15-reps for a single hand.
Folded Arms Stretch
This workout loosens up the muscles near your shoulders, back, and arms.
How To Do It?
- Sit down with folded legs.
- Stretch arms outward on both sides of the body.
- Flex your right arm and touch it toward the back near your left shoulder blade. The back of the hand should reach your back.
- Bend the right arm and touch it with your back near the left shoulder blade. The back of the hand should touch your back.
- Bend left arm on so that the palm touches the tips of the right hand at the back.
- Place your back straight all time, and do not pull your knees upward.
- Perform one set of 5-reps each.
The Knee Bend
This stretch workout targets your leg muscles.
How To Do It?
- Stand straight, raise your right leg upward, bending it at your knee.
- Hold the right leg using your hands.
- Place your back straight throughout.
- Balance weight over the left leg.
- Be in this pose for around 30 seconds and repeat to another leg.
- Perform 2-sets of 10 reps each.
Self-Assisted Neck Stretches
Neck muscles require to be relaxed. When you sit for a long hour at the working desk, you are straining muscles that should not be stretched. It causes pain in your body. Poor body posture, particularly in the back, can put a strain on your neck. To stretch these tensed muscles, you need to perform neck stretches. Doing neck exercises helps to stretch out fascia, muscles, ligaments, and prevent permanent damage.
The Neck Bend
How To Do It?
Balance your shoulder straight, tilt your head to the left, and then level. Perform this four times. The fifth time, tilt head and hold this position for ten seconds.
Repeat the same for the backward position.
Perform one set of 3-reps for both sides.
The Neck Tilt
How to Do It
- Keep your right hand on the top of your back, below your neck. Hold the top of your head using the left hand, stretch it cornerwise down.
- Do this for another side also.
- Perform one set of 5-reps for both sides. Hold this pose for 10 seconds.
The Neck and Shoulder Bend
How to Do It?
- You need a band or towel.
- Stretch the band using both hands back of your back.
- Takedown your right shoulder and tilt your head near your left shoulder. Hold this position for 10 seconds. Repeat this pose for the other side.
- Perform 1-set of 5-reps and hold for 10-seconds.
The Hamstring Stretch
The workout stretches your hamstrings so that when you exercise or dance, you can move without feeling fatigued and sore.
How to Do It?
- Stand straight.
- Flex your upper body and touch your toes using your fingers.
- Make sure you do not flex your knees.
- Hold this position for 30-seconds.
- Repeat this ten times.
- Perform one set of 3-reps, and hold for 15 seconds.
The Bend and Stretch
This stretch activates the complete body, relaxing all muscles and fascia.
How to Do It?
- Stand and keep back straight and feet at distance.
- Bend waist and hold right calf using the left hand and back of your right knee using the right hand.
- Make sure to keep knees straight.
- Be in this position for 10-seconds before you go back to the beginning point. Repeat the same on the other side.
- Perform this complete workout for 15-reps on both sides.
When to Avoid Stretching
If you are suffering from muscle strain, joint sprain, or fractured bone, avoid doing stretch because it can increase damage and pain in the body.
If you have chronic body pains or sharp pains in any body part, take your physical therapist help before starting stretching in everyday life. Affected muscle stretching causes persistent damage.
Women in the final trimester of pregnancy need physician help for safety. Overstretching in the following stages of pregnancy can induce permanent damage.