Stretching - Yep, It's A Thing

If you’ve trained, exercised, or played a sport before I’m sure you can think of a time you didn’t stretch properly (or didn’t stretch at all)…and I’m sure you’ll agree that you felt like a piece of old leather that’s been left in a freezer for a couple of years. Pretty stiff.

Moving quickly (i.e. sprinting) or lifting weight without stretching can result in muscle and joint soreness, or even injury. This is because inactivity can result in muscles and tendons ‘shortening’, reducing range of motion and a feeling of muscle stiffness and/or weakness.

Stretching before you exercise or train has a number of benefits:

  • Reduced muscle tension
  • Increased range of movement in the joints
  • Enhanced muscle coordination
  • Increased circulation of the blood flow to various parts of the body (especially those being stretched)

Stretching effectively lengthens your muscles, with the increased blood flow warming the target area and carrying more oxygen to the muscle cells, enabling muscles to work more efficiently. In turn, this increases flexibility, decreases the risk of injury with the resulting improvement in joint range of motion, all aiming to help improve performance.

Even with a busy life, or only a short time to train, you should always stretch. Here’s a few of my standard stretches that I always do before I start training, regardless of how long I work out for. These will take you 5 minutes tops, but leave you feeling much more mobile.

 

Banded Hip Flexor Stretch
Hook a band around a pole about 30cm off the ground, then slide the band up under your butt.
Slide the leg with the band around it out behind you as far as comfortable, resting the knee on the ground, with the other foot out in front of you with the foot squarely on the ground.
Keeping the upper torso as upright as possible, slide the hip forward and push down on the band with your hand.
Hang out on each leg for about 45-60 seconds.

 

Rack Position Stretch
Hook a band around a pole above shoulder height, and loop the other end just above the elbow. Relax the shoulder with the arm that has the band around it, and walk out away from the band, letting the band rotate your elbow up above your head. Hold this for about 45-60 seconds.

 

Banded Shoulder Stretch
Hook a band around a pole above shoulder height, and loop the other end around your wrist, and grip the band tight. Walk out away from the band, getting tension on the band, and crouch down below the level of where the band is hooked onto the pole. Rotate your shoulder away from your body (i.e. rotate outwards from your body) and floss in and around the shoulder to find your “sweet” spot. Hang out there for 45-60 seconds.

There is a plethora of options and combinations for stretching. I’ve only mentioned 3 stretches that work well for me, but there are many ways to stretch the same muscles with or without bands, or indeed with or without assistance of any sort full stop.

Want some more stretches for something in particular? Ask a coach or head onto YouTube and check out literally millions of stretch demo videos.

Good luck getting stretchy flexy!

- Adam

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