An effective workout consists of several parts, one of which is stretching. However, not everyone knows the importance of stretching and why they should do it.
Stretching should be done both before and after training. If we do them before the exercise, they will help us prepare the body for the effort it will have to make. When you do them after, they help your body to start recovering.
When we do sport we are changing the natural state of our body. We put pressure on it and a series of changes occur in our body, muscles and bones. In order for us to return to our natural state, we must stretch. Apart from helping us to warm up our muscles, stretching our whole body well will make us gain flexibility.
8 Reasons why stretching is important:
- They help prevent injuries: Among their main benefits is that they strengthen bones and muscles. But they also increase the range of motion of our joints and help us improve our movements. Therefore, when we train, we will do it more effectively and avoid getting injured.
- Avoiding stiffness: stiffness occurs because we have put our body under strain. If we help our muscles to start recovering by stretching, we can avoid them.
- Reduce muscle tension: stretching helps to loosen up the muscles. Therefore, we will feel less burdened.
- They prepare the body for training: we should never train cold and without having trained because we can injure ourselves.
- They increase the blood flow: by doing so, we will be activating our metabolism, the blood is oxygenated and the vessels dilate, so the blood flow also increases.
- They reabsorb lactic acid: lactic acid is released when we exercise. One of its consequences is that it makes us feel more tired. Therefore, when we stretch, we reabsorb it and feel less tired.
- They relax us: it is normal to feel agitated and to have high pulses after training. To relax again, both physically and mentally, we must stretch. These will help us to lower our pulses, calm down and return to our natural state.
- They allow us to improve the knowledge of our body: by having to stretch the different parts of the body, we must listen to it to know what our limit is, how far we can extend each limb. Also to know if a part needs more attention.
Aspects to take into account when stretching your muscles:
Correct position. Stretching must be done in a static position, never with sudden movements or bounces.
It is better to start with the lower body and work your way up. This will favor the blood flow and also allow us to train all parts of the body without forgetting any. In this way, we will start with the feet and finish with the head.
We must be relaxed and breathe all the time: controlling our breathing is a fundamental element to doing it correctly. Besides, it will help us to calm down.
We must pull the muscle: we must not only place ourselves in the stretching position. To be really effective we must pull. However, it is very important that it does not hurt. If we feel pain, we must stop, get into the right position and pull more gently.
We will return to the initial position gently: after stretching we must return to the initial position gently and progressively, never in one go.