Stretching Exercises
Part Of A Healthy Exercise Program

Stretching Exercises: Bend And Stretch, Reach For The Stars

The essence of stretching during exercise is warming up and cooling down - perhaps the best advice that has been bandied about for years by fitness and sports medicine advisers.

You do your body a great favor when you incorporate stretching exercises into your routine; they constitute the "prologue" and "denouement" parts of your work out.

Many of today's stretching exercises have been adapted from yoga, ballet, and gymnastics. Whether in the gym or out in the soccer field, your stretching is vital in preventing injury to your muscles and limbs.

Stretching exercises prepare the muscles for the aerobic and muscle-strengthening activities of your routine; they send signals to these muscles that they are about to be recruited for some vigorous activity. Jerking cold muscles during an aerobics step class is a sure path to injury and pulled muscles.

Aids For Stretching Exercises

Stretching exercises have come a long way. They now have their own accessories or equipment, and because of the number of stretches that can be performed, a whole book can be written on differnt types of exercises to stretch the muscles alone!

Flexibility lies at the core of all stretching exercises. Fitness trainers also mention better coordination and balance. Flexibility improves range of motion and wards off injury.

And to assist you with your stretching exercise routines, there are stretch tapes, video demonstrations, stretch kits from yoga and Pilates, exercise band kits, and fit tubes that proliferate in the fitness market place.

As you advance in your workouts, you will discover aids that can facilitate your stretching exercise routines.

Stretching Exercises: A Bit Of The Scientific…

Stretching exercises carry their own bag of terms, some of them a bit annoyingly complex for the lay person to understand.

Asking a simple question like "what happens to the muscle when you stretch" can provoke a scientific explanation such as this: the sarcomere is the starting point of stretching, and is the basic unit of contraction in the muscle fiber. When stretching, the muscle fiber reaches its full length, sarcomere by sarcomere, and connective tissues take up the remaining slack.

One chat web site explains that when a muscle is stretched, some of its fibers lengthen, but other fibers may remain at rest. The current length of the entire muscle depends upon the number of stretched fibers. It goes without saying, therefore, that the higher number of stretched fibers you have, the better your range of flexibility and motion.

Types And Examples Of Stretching Exercises

Sports medicine coaches and advisers recommend stretching exercises for any sport or gym program, and the two most common types of these exercises are the dynamic stretches and the static stretches.

One theory is that dynamic stretches are most effective during a warm-up session because these are slow, controlled movements performed through full ranges of motion. Static stretches, on the other hand, are recommended for the cool down period.

There are exercises to stretch the chest, biceps, upper back, legs, and other muscle groups.

Here's one example of a bicep stretch: In a standing position, position your feet so that they are slightly wider than your shoulders. Bend the knees. Stretch arms outwards to your sides, the palms of the hand facing forward. Rotate the hands so the palms face the rear, and stretch arms as far back as possible. This exercise applies to your chest and biceps.