Three Effective Muscle Stretches
February 7th, 2007
By Richard Black
There are literally hundreds of different types of stretches that you can do on any given day, because you have hundreds of muscles and a variety of different ways to stretch them. Because of that, any effective stretch routine is really just any stretch that you are willing to do regularly.
Stretching is incredibly important - a failure to stretch before a workout regularly can cause severe injury (which, of course, make it impossible to continue any workout), seizing of the muscle and subsequent muscle pain, and an inability to properly work out the muscles that you are working on because your muscles are unable to handle all of the exercise you are placing upon them (causing you to do less of a workout than you could have done). Stretching is simply a necessary part of working out.
Whether you are exercising because you want to make your body look nicer, because you want to lose weight, or because you want to gain strength, none of those are possible if you injure yourself during your exercise. So here are three stretches that you can do in order to prevent this injury from occurring.
Arm Stretches
One way to stretch your muscles is to perform an arm stretch. To do this stretch, stand straight with your feet apart and use your body to swing your arm over your shoulders and down behind your head. Keep your arm relaxed and repeat this stretch about 10 or 20 times for each arm in order to get the maximum effect.
Leg and Buttocks Stretches
You can also stretch your legs fairly easily as well. One method is to stand up straight and put your right leg in front of you as though you are taking a step. While keeping your left leg straight, bend you right leg and move your body towards your right foot while keeping your left leg straight. Repeat with the left leg and repeat this process approximately 10 times.
Foot and Heel Stretches
It is hard to do a number of different exercises if you injure your foot and heel. In fact, you are going to have a difficult time walking around the gym if you injure your feet at all.
With a chair nearby to balance yourself, keep your body immobile while standing on one foot and move that foot up and down so that you are standing on your toes and then moving back to the ground. Repeat this process about twenty or thirty times with both feet, and make sure to extend your foot as much as you can in order to stretch your heel muscle in the process.
These three types of stretches are some of hundreds of different stretches that you can try in order to ensure that you do not injure yourself during a workout. Stretching is far too important for it to be an afterthought, which is why the best stretches for you are going to be ones that you are willing to do regularly before a workout, and not stretches that you are only going to do reluctantly and occasionally skip.
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