Many people overlook an important part of their exercise regime - flexibility training. People often focus on cardiovascular training or strength training. These are both important parts of the exercise process, but flexibility training combined with core stability training is the glue that holds it all together.
Cardiovascular training helps us lose weight and get fit. Strength training helps us build muscles and shed fat. So what exactly does flexibility training offer? It helps us stay limber, have greater functional movement of our bodies, suffer from fewer injuries, and improve our athletic performance. If you want to improve your golf swing or tennis game, start with a flexibility warm-up.
Are you already stretching before you exercise? It's better to get some flexibility warm-ups into your routine than none at all, but if you merely stretch once or twice before you work out you could be limiting the benefits of stretching. Generic stretching activities aren't as beneficial as stretches that are tailored to produce results for a specific muscle group.
In other words, it's better to spend more time on a consistent flexibility training program. You'll realize benefits in daily activities and improved sports performance. Simply adding it to your routine two to three days a week will yield big results.
You will see improvement in the stability of your core muscles, and adds greater range of motion to the large muscle groups that are used in almost all activities. Flexibility warm-up before activities start helps you have greater range of motion and fewer injuries. Adding a few minutes to your training at the end of your exercising helps prevent post activity soreness.
Do you experience points of your body that seem "tight"? These areas of your body are areas where you hold muscle tension. Tense areas could be a result of previous injuries or a muscle imbalance. Flexibility training helps you ease the tension in these parts of the body and correct those imbalances. It's important to tailor your flexibility training to your body's needs as each person is an individual.
One of the ways you can tailor your training is by paying attention to your body's signals. Again, those tight areas are telling you that you need to spend some time stretching the muscles. Any time you experience pain, that's a signal from your body that you've pushed too hard. Whenever you are working through a flexibility warm-up, be careful not to bounce. This can injure muscles - simply hold a stretch for a minimum of 10 to 30 seconds, increasing the duration if your muscles aren't fatigued.
The secret to successful flexibility training is consistency. Add a flexibility warm-up to any exercise or task - whether it's playing golf, or bending down to garden. Add additional stretching exercises to your daily routine - this flexibility training will pay off with increased strength and range of movement. Your body will thank you!
