Why is stretching important?
Stretching keeps your muscles flexible, strong, and healthy and increases the range of motion in your joints. Without routine stretching, your muscles shorten and become tight which puts you at risk for joint pain, strains, and muscle damage. Regular stretching becomes more and more important as you age and your muscles lose strength and tone, and ligaments and tendons become tighter. Your shoulders, hips, spine, and knees tend to be the areas that lose the most flexibility as you age. This makes everyday movements, such as reaching overhead, bending over, squatting, and twisting, more difficult. Tight muscles, tendons, and ligaments can also lead to chronic low back pain, neck pain, and poor posture.
How to start
Stretching all of your muscles might sound a little overwhelming at first, especially if your muscles are already pretty tight. It’s important to remember that starting today and taking small steps is better than waiting until the future when you are “ready.” Also, you don’t have to stretch every single muscle in your body. Instead, focus on the key areas, such as your legs, lower back, shoulders, and neck. Try dedicating 10 minutes a couple days a week to do some stretches. Your future body will thank you for it!
Below we will give you a list of stretches to try. Prior to stretching, go for a quick walk to warm up your muscles – it doesn’t have to be more than 5-10 minutes, just something to get your blood flowing. Stretching your muscles before they are warmed up can cause muscle injury because your muscle fibers aren’t prepared to be stretched, especially if they are very tight to begin with.
When stretching, do so until you feel resistance, but not pain. Hold the position for about 10-30 seconds (depending on the stretch). Don’t bounce, pulse or stretch too far – stretching should not feel uncomfortable or painful.
Here is a video we like that covers a lot of basic stretches for beginners:
If you are looking for more stretches to try, a simple search on YouTube with the type of stretches you are looking for will present you with tons of videos. You can also feel free to reach out to Hannah (hannah@insightlifecare.com) for stretching techniques.