Stretching: The Foundation Of Any Exercise Routine

When you’re exercising, it can be tempting to skip all the boring stretching and flexibility routines to get to the most rewarding parts of the workout, but many of the benefits of stretching underlie not only your gym time, but your whole lifetime. Generally, people view stretching as a way to reduce the chance of injury during a workout, but it can also improve your mood. Flexibility and mobility exercises increase circulation and blood flow to the brain, which allows the brain more oxygen, leading to brighter and more cheerful moods.

Many people exercise because their job is sedentary, be it in a cubicle or behind the wheel of a bus. Stretching is even more important for these people, because the act of sitting for long periods of time stresses the glutes, which can cause long-term problems if they’re not worked and stretched regularly. When the glutes weaken, other muscles in the knees and back have to work overtime to compensate, which leads to knee and back problems due to increased tension in the muscles.

Mobility routines can also drastically help those who carry heavy backpacks or purses frequently. Hauling around these bags can cause one side of the body to become tense due to repetitively carrying an unbalanced weight. This can cause diminished balance, as well as back problems; however, incorporating more stretching and flexibility exercises into your workout can reverse these effects easily, restoring your sense of stability.

 Stretching also helps reduce mental stress, as well as physical. When you’ve done your stretches, the muscles in your body carry less tension, which causes your body to be physically more relaxed. Simply put, when you physically feel relaxed, you’ll feel more mentally relaxed as well. This also goes hand-in-hand with the increased circulation mentioned before.

Long term stretching can even make your body more energy-efficient in its movements. Consider this: pushing your body near or past its point of flexibility takes effort and energy; you can feel it when you’re deep in a stretch and you start to literally warm up. This is the body expending more energy to push the muscles to that point. When you’ve been stretching for some time, your body is pushed to that point less frequently in daily life, such that your everyday routines take less energy, allowing you to accomplish even more with your day.

Many weight lifters unfortunately undervalue flexibility as part of their workout, but for them, it may be the most critical. Weight training, while strengthening the muscles, also shorten them, which causes the sense of tightness after exercising. Working on your flexibility at the end of your weight training routine can dramatically reduce muscle soreness, as well as maintain your current flexibility, rather than allowing it to diminish as muscles shorten.

The final benefit, which is very simple, but also runs very deep, is that it simply feels good. Stretching, with a focus on breath control, is a very mentally relaxing exercise, even outside of the realm of yoga. It’s a simple and effective way to practice basic mindfulness techniques to improve your mood and focus throughout the day. Effectively, flexibility exercises have been somewhat marginalized in lieu of intense cardio and weight lifting, but the benefits of focusing on stretching are innumerable and immense. 

Wood