The contracting muscles squeeze more blood back to the heart and replenishes oxygen to the lungs. Avloniti A, et al. Flexibility is the key to stretch muscles properly. You may learn to enjoy the ritual of stretching before or after hitting the trail, ballet floor or soccer field. Don't bounce. It is an easy task to make it appear large and long without special poses or hidden socks inside your pants. Stretching is a form of physical exercise in which a specific muscle or tendon (or muscle group) is deliberately flexed or stretched in order to improve the muscle's felt elasticity and achieve comfortable muscle tone. Accessed Dec. 16, 2019. Another common belief is that when you stretch, you actually lengthen the muscle you’re trying to stretch. Perform five to 10 minutes of low-intensity exercise, such as walking or swimming before stretching. Keep reading to find out just how many benefits stretching can bring you! Instead, it may be that exercises such as reaching … Stretching is a very light form of exercise, one which helps to promote the production of endorphins by your brain. It can make a difference in how your muscles respond to exercise. The reason that stretching helps to improve your posture is because bad posture can be caused by tight muscles that pull your body away from its intended natural position. © 1998-2020 Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research (MFMER). Tight muscles can cause your back to hunch and the rest of your muscles to tighten which can limit mobility, make you walk funny, and cause some serious pain too. Sometimes as a person stretches they also yawn sometimes. Watch the Stretching and Muscle Fascia Video Take a look at the video below; it’s a light-hearted explanation of what occurs when the muscle fascia starts to bind together due to a lack of movement and stretching. Also, try performing a "dynamic warmup." Stretching warms your muscles, and warm muscles are more pliant. 2nd ed. That puts you at risk for joint pain, strains, and muscle damage. Also stretch muscles and joints that you routinely use. Some studies show that stretching may actually slow you down, especially if you do it before you play your sport. Stretching is important not only to those who actively do sports but also to those who lead a sedentary lifestyle. Better yet, stretch after a workout. Stretching also undoes a lot of the postural damage we do … Well, an increased amount of blood flow to your muscles means more oxygen and nutrients being delivered to them, something which is absolutely necessary for quick muscle recovery. Copyright © 2020. \"We need to take an active role in maintaining and improving the length of our muscles so we can continue to enjoy our ab… There was one study which showed that stretching increased the ability for people to balance when they stepped foot on a stabilometer, a device meant to challenge people’s balance, pretty much by trying to make them fall down. For instance, if stretching helped you increase your range of motion, your range of motion may decrease again if you stop stretching. Yet another benefit that you can get from stretching all of the time is that it can make you feel happier. Not only does serotonin make you feel happier, but it can also help you deal with mental health issues such as depression and anxiety. However, it’s been shown that just stretching doesn’t produce these effects in the short-term nor stretching regimes of up to seven consecutive months. 2. The simple fact is that stretching elongates your muscles so they function more effectively. But it does have an important effect on your muscles that makes it useful both post workout and after any period of being still (sitting, sleeping, etc.). Some research shows that stretching doesn't reduce muscle soreness after exercise, and other studies show that lengthening the muscle and holding the stretch immediately before a sprint may slightly worsen performance. When you are exercising and you haven’t bothered to stretch beforehand, your muscles are usually quite tight, not very limber, and they often have trouble achieving their full range of motion. Stretching can go a very long way in reducing the pain caused by tight muscles. The thing about developing poor posture and, consequently, bad balance, is that it happens gradually, without you even noticing it. When trying to develop strength and power, most people devote their time to lifting weights, pushing as much as physically possible. It is clear that stretching doesn't actually make muscles permanently longer, experts agree. You see, when you hunch, you make your muscles weak. Having high blood pressure causes your arteries to stretch too far and form small tears. You often hear claims that stretching reduces the risk of injury and improves flexibility. You Don’t Exercise and Are Inactive. Say, if you sit in a chair for hours on end, your hamstrings become accustomed to being shortened. Strengthening your hamstrings is one way to protect against hamstring strain. Without enough recovery time before your next workout, you will actually end up making more and more of these micro tears, thus causing your muscles to take damage and degrade. Muscle soreness and fatigue is in part caused by those suffering from too many micro tears, or in other words, you did curls with the 75-pound dumbbells when you should have been using the 50 pounders. With prolonged stretching, ligaments can be stretched, resulting in more flexible and often less stable joints. Anyway, the decreased recovery time that you have to go through thanks to increased blood circulation also goes a long way in reducing the pain suffered from way too strenuous workouts.

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