You should stop and touch your toes. Like any bend-and-hold movements, touching your toes demands your muscles to stretch.
According to Bryant Walrod, MD, a sports medicine specialist and assistant professor of clinical family medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine in Columbus, "flexibility is the amount of stretch that a certain muscle allows."
Every muscle in our body comprises lengthy strands of muscle fibers, or cells, which are then bundled into progressively larger groupings and finally covered in a connective tissue substance called fascia. According to him, our muscles are intended to contract (which enables you to move or carry an object or push open a door) and stretch. Moreover, the opposite stretch is as crucial to the contraction.
Why Exercise's Key Component Is Flexibility
According to Dr. Walrod, if a muscle can't fully relax and stretch, it will alter the biomechanics of your body and could put pressure or stress on other sections of your body.
Our mobility may eventually be restricted by a muscle that cannot sufficiently loosen up and stretch.
Mobility refers to a joint's capacity to move through its complete and healthy range of motion without being constrained by other tissues like ligaments, tendons, or muscles. Joints are places where two or more bones meet. According to Adam Rivadeneyra, MD, a sports medicine physician at the Hoag Orthopedic Institute and Orthopaedic Specialty Institute in Orange County, California, when mobility is restricted due to overly tight muscles, the capacity to safely carry out daily activities as well as exercises like running and strength training declines.
Imagine a ballerina attempting to kick her leg above her head without warming up or a pitcher attempting to hurl a fastball right away after exiting the locker room. In both cases, an injury is practically demanded. Even routine activities (such as bending over to pick up something you dropped or lifting luggage) can raise the risk of muscular strains and tears if Flexibility is restricted. According to Walrod, this is particularly true for older people whose Flexibility gradually reduces.
According to Nicole Belkin, MD, an orthopedic surgeon at Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, "Flexibility helps you perform activities of daily living and self-maintenance as you age, like putting socks and shoes on, taking care of your foot health, and being able to wash."
Also, it's critical to remember that everything in your body is interconnected. Hence, when a muscle becomes overly tight, it pulls on nearby bones and muscles. Also, to keep you moving, other joints must take up the slack if one joint cannot move as it should. This can eventually lead to overuse ailments like tendinitis.
The Various Styles of Stretches for Increasing Flexibility
Your muscles must do this frequently to ensure they can still relax and stretch when you want (regardless of age). You must, therefore, deliberately perform muscle-stretching exercises.
Dr. Belkin advises five minutes of stretching three to five days weekly to improve Flexibility. The stretches you can perform to keep or increase Flexibility are listed below:
Stretching Static
According to Walrod, one of the most popular methods is static stretching, which involves moving to the limit of a joint's range of motion and holding that posture for 15, 30, or more seconds.
For instance, you can touch your toes to stretch your hamstrings when standing or sitting on the floor with your legs extended. You can stride forward while holding both sides of a doorframe to extend your chest muscles. You can tuck your knee into your chest to loosen up your glutes.
Young, healthy adults have demonstrated to have increased hamstring flexibility after static stretching.
Static stretching is not advised before exercise (when muscles have not warmed up).
According to consistent research, it is generally advised against performing static stretches before working out, especially when held for longer than 60 seconds, says Walrod. According to him, static stretches cause the muscles to become overly flexible and incapable of correctly stabilizing the joints in your body.
Additionally, research from 2019 Dynamic Stretching has found that performing static stretches for longer than 60 seconds before exercise reduces strength and performance.
Dynamic stretches help the body's muscles and connective tissues receive more blood by gently moving joints through their full range of motion. They are perfect for performing before exercises because of this. Proper up arrow Dynamic stretching before an exercise may enhance performance in terms of force, power, sprinting, and jumping, according to research published in 2018.
Some examples are leg swings, walking lunges, hip circles, and arm circles.
Foam rolling is a form of myofascial release.
According to Walrod, myofascial release, which includes foam rolling and massage, works by exerting pressure on the connective tissues of the muscles to encourage relaxation.
Foam rolling is most helpful when done before dynamic stretching to increase Flexibility.
For instance, in a 2015 study, foam-rolled athletes did not see a gain in Flexibility. But compared to static stretching, they found that foam rolling followed by static stretches considerably increased their Flexibility. Proper up arrow Several studies, including one from 2015, demonstrate that foam rolling after a workout can speed up muscle repair and lessen subsequent muscular discomfort. Proper up arrow. It's important to note that both examples come from limited research.
Nevertheless, a meta-analysis released in 2019 found that foam rolling may be most beneficial for more people as part of a pre-exercise regimen and generally has small benefits on performance and recovery.
How Strength Training improves Flexibility
Strength training is an additional method to enhance general muscular function and mobility (which itself is a component of exercise you should already be doing twice per week)
Research from 2017 indicated that strength training alone could improve Flexibility in specific body parts.
A study of six research found that completing eccentric workouts, which extend the muscle, can increase Flexibility in various lower limb muscle groups.
Your muscles stretch during eccentric activities when you lower into a squat or elevate the lat pull-down bar at the beginning. According to Walrod, you may stretch the muscle while enhancing its strength and functionality as it lengthens by slowing down this eccentric part of the exercise.
It's crucial to carry out each exercise through its complete range of motion to ensure that your strength-training activities increase rather than restrict your mobility, he continues. For instance, when performing a pushup, drop your body as much as possible toward the floor (rather than cutting the exercise short).
When You Bend the Wrong Way: Hyperflexibility and Inflexibility
It's important to get an evaluation from a qualified and certified personal trainer, physical therapist, or sports medicine physician to understand what's going on, according to Walrod. While stretching and strengthening exercises are fantastic ways to increase Flexibility on your own, if a lack of Flexibility affects your workouts or daily activities and traditional stretching isn't helping, it's important to get an evaluation from one of these professionals.
Other conditions besides rigidity might also bring on mobility issues. Arthritis, accidents, muscular imbalances, and weakness can restrict the range of motion. According to Walrod, the solution isn't usually to stretch farther.
For instance, he claims that weak core muscles that cannot adequately maintain the pelvis frequently cause tight hamstrings. The front of the pelvis may drop, and the back of the pelvis may rise as a result. He says that because the hamstrings connect to the pelvis when the rear of the pelvis rises, it pulls the hamstrings even more tightly. The root can be resolved by strengthening the core, but hamstring flexibility cannot be increased.
You can get assistance from a sports medicine doctor, physical therapist, or personal trainer to identify the root of your rigidity and choose the best treatment option.
Hyperflexibility can also cause problems, according to Walrod. Children are more likely than adults to have hypermobile joints, which are joints that move beyond what is thought to be a healthy range of motion. Weak or lax connective tissues can bring on this condition. Joints can become hypermobile when ligaments, which connect bones, become loose. In addition to arthritis, hypermobility can result in dislocated joints, sprains, and strains.
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