Stretching is something in my opinion that everyone should be doing. Are you stretching on a regular basis? If not, how come?
Here is some reasons why you should be stretching on a regular basis:
- It helps prevents injuries
- It can improve your strength up to 18%
- It can improve your athleticism
- It will make you feel younger
- Helps with your range of motion
- Can help make you less sore after your workouts
- Helps keeps the elasticity of your muscles for a longer period of time
- and many other benefits
So please tell me why you are not stretching? The benefits clearly speak for themselves. And if you are stretching, keep it up my friend. You know how it feels to be flexible. It feels great doesn’t it?!
You know if you work out with weights they say you should be stretching out at least half the amount of time that you do weight training. So if you spend 5 hours a week training with weights, you should be spending at least 2.5 hours stretching if not more. It is very important that you do. When you are training with weights you are always contracting the muscles. Well you also need to relax and lengthen them in the opposite directions of the contractions otherwise you are creating an imbalance which can cause injuries and un-neccsary ware and tare on your body.
And if you think stretching is boring, you may be wrong. There is all kinds of ways to stretch out to keep it fresh. There is many different styles of athletic stretching and yoga style stretches that can keep you learning and progressing for almost forever. Having a good mixture of yoga and athletic stretching is what I do for balance in my conditioning. It certainly does make a difference in performance and health.
Do you have time in your busy schedule? Yes you do. If you spend any time at all watching tv or lying around, you can stretch out. So give it a good honest try.
Master Jonathan Field