Flexibility is the ability of our muscles to lengthen and stretch. Developing this capacity is what allows them to have a wider range of movement. It brings great benefits, so it is essential to work it.
Improving flexibility will be useful for our training sessions. Because we will have more agility, more range of movement of the joints and we will be able to do more complex exercises. It will also be useful in our daily life, since it makes it easier to perform certain movements. This reduces the discomfort we feel.
When we do the stretches at the beginning and end of each training session we are improving our flexibility. However, we recommend specific sessions to improve it more effectively.
Tips for gaining flexibility
- Warm up properly: Before doing flexibility exercises it is essential to warm up properly. This will help prepare your muscles for the effort you will be making and reduce the risk of injury from cold training.
- Hold the position between 15 and 30 seconds: for each position to be effective and allow us to improve flexibility, we must hold the position without changing it between 15 and 30 seconds. Holding less than 15 seconds makes the exercise not as effective as it should be. We can repeat each series of exercises between 3 and 5 times.
- We must do these exercises with an adequate frequency: doing a flexibility session once a week does not bring the results we want to obtain. To do this, we must increase the frequency of training. The ideal is to stretch every day.
- Follow a balanced diet: diet is the best complement to all training. And for flexibility exercises it is no exception. The ideal is a diet rich in Omega 3 (oily fish have large amounts of this fatty acid, such as sardines or salmon). Because it helps to increase the elasticity of the muscles and joints.
- Doing Pilates: Pilates exercises help us to improve the elongation of our muscles. In addition, they allow us to better control our breathing and body awareness. This makes it an ideal discipline for this purpose.
- Doing yoga: many of the yoga postures contribute to the improvement of the body’s elasticity. This happens thanks to the asanas and constant movements of each exercise. So, if you want to improve your flexibility, don’t forget to include yoga exercises.
- Practicing body balance: body balance is a discipline that combines exercises from various modalities: tai-chi, yoga and pilates. So it is also a discipline to be taken into account to achieve our purpose. Besides, by combining several disciplines we will not have the feeling that we always do the same exercises. We will do very varied and fun sessions.
It is important that you adapt the flexibility exercises to your age and physical condition to avoid injury.