Flexibility and Stretching

By Lisa VanWilliams

Always warm your muscles up before you stretch them!  It's important to raise your body temp because bottom line is you cannot stretch cold muscles. Flexibility is described as the absolute range of movement in a joint or series of joints, and length in muscles that cross the joints. People have different flexibility levels and that varies due to the differences in muscle length of multi-joint muscles.

It can improve your quality of life by maintaining a good range of motion. Loss of motion can lead to health problems such as physical issues, pain syndromes, and balance disorders.  Stretching is a way to improve your flexibility.  The best way to stretch a muscle is to apply force to the area being stretched and hold it just beyond the feeling of pain for ten seconds.  Do not hold it for too long and over stretch the muscle. 

Improving your range of motion will give you a better posture, improve your overall performance and quality of life.  The Mayo Clinic recommends to following to keep stretching safe:

• don't consider stretching a warm up. Do a light jog or walk for 5-10 mins to warm up muscles before stretching
• focus on major muscle groups -calves, thighs, hips, lower back, neck and shoulders
• don't bounce because that can cause tears in muscle
• don't aim for pain -stop at the brink
• make stretches sport specific
• bring movement into your stretching