Flexibility is often the neglected component of fitness, as one of the four dominant types of physical preparation along with speed, endurance, and strength, it is vital part of any fitness regime. No matter what your goals, profession, experience, gender or age, flexibility should be part of your exercise program.
If for example you have poor flexibility of the lower back and hamstrings this has been shown to contribute to lower back pain, a common ailment that you regularly hear people talking about. For this reason alone it is important to recognize and correct flexibility problems as soon as possible. If you are currently following an exercise regime or just about to embark on one make sure that you have your overall flexibility checked at your local gym or by a health and fitness professional.
Advantages
- Good flexibility will help relieve stiffness, prevent injuries, and maintain a good range of motion (ROM) of the joints. Gaining and maintaining flexibility will decrease the risk of injury from your chosen hobby, sport or everyday life activity like bending over to pick up a bag.
- If you do any strength or resistance training you are building muscle , you want the muscle to be long and lengthened not tight. If the muscle is tight this will restrict the range of motion of the joint thus hampering your efforts to increase the muscle size.
- Stretching keeps our tendons and ligaments elastic helping us maintain a good range of motion (ROM) of our joints, it also promotes the transport of nutrients to the joints.
- Stretching can improve your coordination enhancing your sporting prowess whilst also helping with outdoor recreational activities such as bush walking, walking along a beach or hilly terrain.
Flexibility tips
- Do not stretch a cold muscle make sure you have done al least 10 minutes of movement of the large muscle groups before doing so. This can be rowing, jogging, biking or some high repetition of light weights.
- Make sure you learn the correct method for each stretch.
- Stretch all the major muscle groups, otherwise you will create an imbalance that will affect your posture. Strive for balanced flexibility on the right and left sides of the body and in opposing muscle groups and adjacent joints.
- Do not bounce when you stretch. Find the point at which you feel a comfortable stretch and hold it for 20-30 seconds.
- If you are on a stretching regime for sport-specific goals or specialized rehabilitation needs make sure you also focus on the other areas as well, do not only do the special stretches as this may affect your overall flexibility.
- Everybody is different so remember like other parts of your exercise program, flexibility is a very individual thing, one doesn’t fit all. Do not try and stretch past your stretch point as this may result in injury.
- Your stretch point is the position where you feel the stretch working but not to the extent of feeling pain.
- Too much ROM in a joint can be as undesirable as too little ROM because it decreases joint stability.
- If your ROM is far from the norms, consider strengthening the loose areas and stretching the tight areas.
What is Range of Motion (ROM)?
Put simply it is the distance and direction a joint can move to its full potential. Each joint has a normal range of motion and if you are keen to find out what it is it can be measured with an instrument called a goniometer, it measures angles from the axis of the joint.
Do not bounce when you stretch, Why?
Bouncing can cause micro-trauma injury to the muscle which then heals itself with scar tissue, this scar tissue tightens the muscle causing less flexibility and making you prone to pain.
After exercise do Static Stretching, where you you hold one position for a period of time as it is much gentler on your body, because you ease your muscles into it.
Remember what I said earlier though, when you stretch you want to lengthen the muscle as far as you can, feeling a stretch, but NOT as far as feeling pain. Repeating Static Stretching should always be done after exercise, Dynamic Exercise Stretching should be used prior to exercise.
If you are not sure about your flexibility have a health and fitness professional put you through a few basic tests, you will be surprised how much of a difference it can make toward achieving your fitness goal.
Zol
Fitness Moves