Improving Flexibility

 10/25/21

It's really important to stretch your muscles and improve your range of motion at the joints because it will help you move more efficiently with your daily activities and will be highly beneficial to you in your elder years because one of the factors that influence flexibility is age. Stretching involves Dynamic and Static stretching. Dynamic stretching involves movement while Static stretching involves holding the stretch in place. Dynamic stretching is to be done before exercising because it helps loosen up your muscles for your activity. Static stretching is to be completed after exercise because muscles that are warmed up will be more elastic than cold muscles. This provides a greater opportunity for stretching the muscle and preventing injury while stretching.

There are certain stretches that one must avoid. These include the Standing Toe Touch because it may strain your lower back, the Hurlder stretch because it "may put strain in the bent knee," Overroundng of the back because it "may stress the neck and low back," hyperextension of the back because it's "ineffective at stretching the abdominal muscles and may put stress on the back," and doing a full neck circle because it "hyperextends the neck." If you wish to improve your flexibility, Static stretching recommendations are 60 seconds total per stretch (4 times for 15s. or 2 times for 30s.) "two to three days per week for a minimum of 10 minutes." This also rings true for dynamic stretching except the movements per stretch are repeated "5-12 times" for a total of "30-60 seconds."  

Bushman, Barbara. American College of Sports Medicine: Complete Guide to Fitness and Health.

2nd edition. Human Kinetics. 2011. Revised 2017.

Comments

  1. Carli PauvlinchOctober 27, 2021 at 5:55 AM

    This post was so helpful because I never really knew the true difference between dynamic and static stretching. I usually just skip the stretching part when I workout. I either forget or am too lazy to do it. When I do stretch, though, I always included the standing toe touch. Now, I'm going to avoid it, considering the strain on the lower back.

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