Stretching is one of the most important activities that you can do prior to working out or beginning any kind of physical task. This is true for organized sporting activities such as soccer and tennis, but it is equally important for personal physical activities, including backpacking, jogging or just going to the gym. Lots of people put off stretching because they do not wish to devote the additional time, find it to be unexciting, or believe that it will not really help. Nothing could be further from the truth. A stretching program can help you in lots of ways, from injury avoidance to recovery to overall performance.
Injury Prevention The most important reason why you need to practice stretching would be to keep your body from injuries. In most cases, this refers to a pulled muscle. If the muscles have not had the opportunity to warm up and become limber before you begin your activity, they are not going to be ready for the accelerated stress that they are going to experience. This can be doubly accurate if you have not been active all day long, and have just been sitting down at work.
Think of this in the same way that you would think of leaping out of bed in the morning, and starting to jog before switching off the alarm. You will not be fully awake, and your mind would be spinning from the abrupt movement. In the same manner, your muscles have to wake up, if they have not received a lot of use, even when your brain is already awake.
Pulled Muscles You can pull muscles in almost any part of the body, though the calves and the thigh muscles are the most typical for runners. This may occur when you try to turn or cut, or when you might be in a game of football, but it may also happen while you are running in a straight line. The muscles must be able to twitch and react in the blink of an eye to help you maintain your balance, and they cannot do that if you have not stretched.
Pulled Hip Flexor Muscle One more popular injury that stretching out can easily prevent is a pulled hip flexor muscle. It is the muscle which goes up through the inside of your thigh to near your groin. This can be an extremely bad injury since it takes a lengthy time to heal after it has been hurt. This will make it hard to raise your legs, which can have a huge impact on how effective you can run, or if you could run whatsoever. Additionally, this muscle is extremely easy to re-injure. A lot of people believe that this injury has recovered and set out to run, only to damage it again since they have not stretched thoroughly.
What Can You Do? Stretching should be performed often; it must always be done for at least ten minutes before you begin any sort of fitness activity. Once you have begun, you need to stretch again if you take a rest. A lot of sports involve rests for halftime as well as between quarters. It is best to stretch again each time this sort of break occurs to keep your muscles limber and ready to go. They may tighten up immediately after inactivity because they will be fatigued. It is crucial never to run back out on the court or field once they have tightened up, or you could risk an even greater injury than at the beginning of the event.
Many of us will simply stretch to begin the day. They will do it on a daily basis, when they get up. It is an exceptional method of getting the blood flowing and prepare the muscles for the activity of work and play. While this is not absolutely required, it is always recommended. Ten minutes of stretching out will go a long way toward assisting you to stay healthy regardless of what kind of situation comes your way.
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