Should i stretch everyday

To increase it, try substituting a harder option. To make the stretch easier, add a pillow or rolled towel or use a stretch strap. Stretching is an excellent thing you can do for your health. To discover simple, yet effective moves that can help you limber up for sports, improve your balance and prevent falls, increase your flexibility, and even help relieve arthritis, back, and knee pain, checkout the Stretching Special Health Report from Harvard Medical School.

Be sure to repeat with the other leg. Begin this stretch by getting on the floor on all fours, then slowly slide your knees outward while lowering your rear to the floor—keeping your toes pointed outward.

Start by standing with your feet together, and use your right hand to pull your right foot up and toward your rear. Hold for 30 seconds, then repeat on the other side. Touching your toes may loosen your limbs, but new research says it will also work wonders for your heart. By William Mayle. William Mayle is a UK-based writer who specializes in science, health, fitness, and other lifestyle topics. Read more. Read This Next. More in Weight Loss. What is Flexibility?

Flexibility is commonly described as the range of motion, or movement, around a particular joint or set of joints. When improving flexibility is the goal, the muscles and their fascia sheath should be the major focus of flexibility training. While bones, joints, ligaments, tendons and skin do contribute to overall flexibility, we have limited control over these factors. Within the broader definition of flexibility there exists two distinct types of flexibility: Static and Dynamic.

Range of motion ROM , or range of movement, is so intimately related to flexibility that the terms are often considered having the same meaning. That is, they all describe the extent to which a joint can go in its established spectrum of movements. So, range of motion also measures the current amount of motion around a joint as determined by the condition of the bones and the soft tissue surrounding the joint that hold it together.

Stretching, as it relates to physical health and fitness, is the process of placing particular parts of the body into a position that will lengthen, or elongate, the muscles and associated soft tissues. Upon undertaking a regular stretching program a number of changes begin to occur within the body and specifically within the muscles themselves.

Other tissues that begin to adapt to the stretching process include the fascia, tendons, ligaments, skin and scar tissue. Although there are many different ways to perform a stretch as you can see from the hierarchy diagram below , they can all be grouped into one of two categories: Static or Dynamic. And that type of stretching is by way and a far the best type of stretching for achieving that goal.

So, you want to warm up properly before sport and exercise, then you would use a different type of stretching. Like I said, some are more beneficial for warming up and sports performance. Others are more beneficial for rehabilitation and recovery from injury and others are more beneficial for improving range of motion.

So, it really comes down to, like I said before, it depends. Emily : Great. So, we got Charles asking and it was on my mind too, Charles. How long should we be holding a stretch for? Is that the right question to ask? Brad : Yeah, you got it. So, the method for that is to move yourself into the stretch until you feel tension, contract against the stretch for five to six seconds. Repeat that process two to four times and then move deeper into the stretch and hold that for about 15 to 20 seconds.

So, with static stretching, you want to hold your stretches for at least 30 to 40 seconds. Some athletes will hold those stretches for quite a lot longer, over 60 seconds. The research tells us that after about two minutes, you start to get diminishing returns. So, start off with 30 to 40 seconds.

Which muscles should you stretch? There are a few exceptions to this such as athletes that require increased flexibility for their chosen sport , but for most people this is a wise rule to follow. For example, if you notice that your right hamstring muscles are tighter than your left hamstrings muscles, work on the right hamstring muscles until you have even flexibility in both.

This follows on from the previous point. Take a look at the short video below where I explain why the full-body stretch is such a bad idea….

What I like to do is I like to create a routine for a very specific purpose. So it might be for a particular injury or it might be for a particular sport or it might be for a particular muscle group, but I never just create a routine for everything. So why is this full body routine such a bad idea? Because most people would think that stretching everything is a great idea and I get asked just about every week to create a full body routine for someone.

So why is it such a bad idea? Well, you see every muscle in the body or muscle group has an opposing muscle group.

Now, a classic example of the agonist-antagonist or opposing muscle groups is the quadriceps in the front of your legs opposed by the hamstrings in the back of your legs. Another example is the biceps and triceps. So these are opposing muscle groups. Another one is the groin inside of your legs and then the outside of your legs and everywhere in the body you have these agonist antagonist relationships where they balance out each other.

Okay so, before we had the bicycle wheel this way. Everyone with me? Now if you can imagine this side of the spokes or this side of the wheel is the agonist and this side of the wheel is the antagonist. So in other words, this side might be the quadriceps and this side might be the hamstrings. And create a wobble in the wheel obviously and then the wheel runs out of alignment. So our goal is always to create a balance between these two muscle groups.

So when you have one muscle group that is tight it pulls the wheel out of alignment and again it comes back to balance. When to Stretch? Most people understand the importance of stretching as part of a warm-up or cool-down, but when else should you stretch? Stretch periodically throughout the entire day.

It is a great way to stay loose and to help ease the stress of everyday life. One of the most productive ways to utilize time is to stretch while watching television.

Start with five minutes of marching or jogging on the spot then take a seat on the floor in front of the television and start stretching.

Stretching before exercise or as part of your warm-up is great, but pre-exercise stretching is not meant to improve your flexibility; its purpose is simply to prepare you for exercise.

So if you want to improve your range of motion, when is the best time to stretch? One of the best times to stretch is after your work out, as part of your cool-down. This is when your muscles are most warm and pliable, which makes it much easier to stretch and reach new levels of flexibility. Another great time to stretch is just before going to bed. This works at a neuromuscular level, as the increased muscle length is the last thing your nervous system remembers before going to sleep.

Sleep, is also the time when your muscles and soft tissues heal, which means your muscles are healing in an elongated, or stretched position.

So, that does lead us to the next question. When should we be doing our flexibility training? You really need to set aside time to sit down and concentrate and work specifically on your flexibility now, as far as the best time of the day, etc. My recommendation is that you do most of your flexibility training late at night before you go to bed.

I know for me, I like to sort of finish the day with you know, a little bit of TV, some sort of comedy or something lighthearted just to finish off the day with, and I use that time to do my flexibility training. I do a little bit of that. I have some hate packs that I use. I have some trigger point balls. Number one is that the stretching you do before you go to bed will work on a Neuromuscular level.