As
you age, your muscles tighten and the range of motion in your joints diminishes.
This can limit your active lifestyle or make normal day-to-day activities
harder. People notice that tasks that were simple before, now become extremely
difficult.
Florida orthopedic specialists, Sea
Spine Orthopedic Institute say that stretching is just about the simplest
of all physical activities. Children, teenagers, adults and senior
citizens can improve their body’s health by stretching.
“Stretching is one
element of fitness that is often neglected until pain or discomfort set in, yet
a small investment of time every day can lead to improved flexibility and
greater performance in all aspects of life. Says
Dr. Griffes
Author of Stretching for Life Today's sedentary lifestyle leads to lack of
movement, which in turn, leads to adaptive shortening of your muscles. This
muscle shortening can influence your balance and coordination, along with
strength and agility. Daily or nightly stretching of muscles helps alleviate
muscular aches and pains and reduces the risk of injury. Stretching different
muscle groups throughout the day helps keep you relaxed and alert. Consider
adding stretching into your daily diet of health and fitness”.
The benefits of stretching for your wellbeing include:
Increases Flexibility
Flexibility
is the point in which an individual’s muscle will lengthen to. Lack of
flexibility makes your movement slower and less fluid. Lack of flexibility makes you more susceptible
to muscle strains, and other soft tissue injuries. Stretching can avoid this.
Balance and Coordination.
The
increased flexibility that occurs from adequate stretching improves balance and
coordination. Improved balance and coordination lowers your risk for
falls, better agility and quicker
reflexes.
Better circulation
Stretching
increases blood flow to your muscles. Blood flowing to your muscles brings nutrition
and gets rid of unwanted byproducts from the muscle tissue. Better circulation
can help shorten recovery time, if
you've had muscle injuries.
Lower
Cholesterol
Prolonged stretching exercises will help reduce the cholesterol in your body. Of
course this must be supplemented with a
healthy diet. This could prevent and
even setback the clotting of the arteries, allowing you to avoid heart problems.
Improving Posture
Poor
posture, which has developed over time, can be attributed to muscle imbalances.
A good example is, people who hunch over a computer for long periods of time
tend to shorten the chest muscles. Stretching these muscles can help to improve
posture. Stretching is also beneficial in reducing lower back pain and future injuries.
Stress relief
Muscle
tightness is often linked to stress. Our body tends to tighten up when
stressed. Stretching relaxes these muscles. A good example of this is the neck
muscles.
Reduces Fatigue
When
muscles are tight one becomes tired more quickly. This fatigue decreases mental
and physical performance. Stretching can help with this. You may have
notice that if you have been sitting in a particular position for a long time,
you stretch unconsciously, this is the body fighting fatigue.
Audrey Phillips Green,
fitness professional says
“I must confess that stretching is not my favorite thing to do. I would
rather perform an intense cardio routine than stretching. Do I skip stretching
due to the fact that I do not enjoy it? Of course not, and I will give you the
reasons why. Stretching increases the body’s range of motion; therefore a
person’s athletic performance is increased. Moreover, the risk of injury is
greatly reduced when one incorporates stretching into their daily routine.
During a stretch, the muscle fibers are lengthened which creates greater ease
of movement; thereby, improving coordination and posture and decreasing muscle
soreness and lower back pain. Not only is stretching awesome for your muscles;
it has been proven to reduce stress and anxiety. The perfect example I can give
is my dog. The first thing he does when he wakes up in the morning is stretch,
and he lives a totally carefree life. So, get to stretching people and enjoy
your life!”
If
you have an injury or any type of recurring soreness see a doctor or back professional quickly. Stretching
is not intended to cure serious problems. If you have pain of a repetitive
strain injury, some damage has already been done.
If you're looking for professional and experienced high-rated Florida orthopedic surgeons, contact Sea Spine
Orthopedic Institute today at
http://www.seaspineortho.com/
or call 866-816-ORTHO.
