You don’t have to be this flexible, but stretching will help your muscle building efforts
While I like to stress the importance of proper warm-ups before any kind of workout, Of course, stretching has a lot of other benefits to offer; not only as a warmup, but as a worthwhile addition to your fitness regimen in its own right. So no matter what fitness activity you’re about to engage in, whether it’s a weight training session or a game of tennis, you need to be prepared.
Why you should stretch
I’ll try in this article to convince all of you of the merits of stretching each and every day, whether or not you’ll even be working out that day because flexibility is important to every aspect of your life, not just as a bodybuilder or athlete of any stripe. And it gets even more important the older you get!
Stretching will give you a greater range of movement. This comes in handy in every situation. Remember the last time you had to contort yourself to get something into or out of your crawlspace-style attic, for instance? Imagine how much easier that would have been if you were a bit more flexible. Or perhaps you have kids it’s easier keeping up with children after following a regular routine of daily stretches.
Here’s something else, people don’t realize about stretching: You’ll be more relaxed. Stretching causes your heart rate to slow and stress levels to lower somewhat. With regular stretching, this effect lasts far beyond when you are actually doing your stretches. (this is one of the reasons why yoga is so good for you!)
Did you know stretching helps pain relief? It’s true: Sore muscles can actually be soothed by stretching. This may seem counterintuitive, but it really works! Next time you have some sore muscles, try a gentle stretch to get the blood moving into that area as you slowly lengthen and contract the muscle through stretching while breathing deep into the area you want to relax and soothe.
Better posture. Posture is important, especially for weightlifters. Many strength training exercises require you to keep your back and head straight, which can be difficult if you have poor posture. Stretching can help you keep a better, more neutral posture and help you avoid straining yourself during exercises like squats as well as let you make the most of your workout by hitting the correct muscles in the correct way.
Believe me, you don’t want muscle imbalances — they lead to lots of injuries! In fact, if you happen to have any lower back pain, then it’s probably because you have muscle imbalances. Especially if you’ve been working out for a while — you’ve probably overworked some muscles (which become tighter) and underworked others (which stay “looser”) and it’s these muscle imbalances which are pulling your back out of alignment.
Now, here’s the last thing you should keep in mind…
You should warm up before stretching!
Yeah I know, it seems like you don’t need to, but you do need a little blood to get flowing. Just a quick walk with your arms moving freely as you do so is sufficient for this; but you don’t want to go from a dead stop to a stretch. Because you need to make sure your muscles aren’t totally “cold”. And you certainly don’t want to get an injury during your warm up!
So now you know what to do — so get stretching! I’ll see you in the weight room!
