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Wednesday, July 24, 2013

The Pre-Exercise Stretching Myth



Did you know pre-exercise stretching is generally unnecessary and likely counterproductive? Depending on how much water the person drank the day before to how generally active that person is, you will be amazed how many factors you either would never think about being important, indeed are. 
Warm-up routines, for example, an exercise that includes light stretching, jumping jacks, or frog hops can prepare the body for intensive activity without making the muscles vulnerable to overwork.  A gentle warm-up that takes less than a minute to stretch the quadriceps, hamstrings and calves can be valuable prior to cardiovascular exercise. Increasing the ranges of motion in the body will domino into enhancing the activities of daily life. 

Pre-exercise stretching (stretching via focusing on on bodypart at a time) all the time, may actually comunicate to the muscle to lose flexibility when they are overworked. Overstretching your muscle and then demanding a power activity from it, could restrict the power or force that it would have if it hadn't been stretched so intensely.  

Bottom Line: Perform a warm up routine first, as noted above, then spend more time on recovery stretching afterwards.

In Health, 
Zeke Samples - IFA, - IDEA
Surrealbody@gmail.com


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