FLEXIBILITY TRAINING

Do you experience that irritating pain on your back, stiffness on your hamstrings or inner thigh area when you bend while doing house chores, while at work or during a workout, do you have posture problems or feel some pain around  your neck area? Then most probably you are either not stretching at all or you are not stretching in the right way.

Static neck and Abs stretch: Hold the position as illustrated for between 10-15 minutes, relax and repeat for 3-4 sets.

Static neck Abs stretch from a different angle.

Static and Dynamic. With this you will stretch your calves, hamstring, lower to upper back, and arms as well. It can also be done with movement. If you choose to do static, hold for 10-15 seconds, do 2-3 sets. If you go with dynamic then up and down for 10-15 reps, 2-3 sets.

Static or Dynamic Oblique and Iliotibial band stretch (IT): If you are doing it as a static stretch hold it for 10-15 minutes for 2-3 sets. If you are doing it as a dynamic stretch then move side to side, do 10-12 reps for the same number of sets as above.

Static, glutes and upper body stretch: With this you get to stretch your chest , shoulder blades,arms, glutes and hamstring muscles. hold for 10-15 seconds, do 3-4 sets.In today’s article we are exploring various stretching techniques and their importance.

Stretching mainly involves three systems in our body. These are the nervous, muscular and skeletal systems… and yes contrary to myth, the human skeleton is actually an active living tissue. Some of the functions of the human skeleton are support and movement which are very important in flexibility training.
It’s important to note that flexibility varies with gender (women are more flexible than men), age (the younger you are…), medical history (past injury) and body temperature (that is why a warm up before stretching is very important to raise one’s body temperature).
Did you know that your body has a total of 206 bones???????

So next time you are stretching remember to warm up and do it right AND REMEMBER, there are two main types of stretching techniques,  static stretch or a dynamic stretch with the many variations.  I recommend static stretching for beginners and dynamic stretching for athletes. I would also like to encourage all readers to ask questions and share insights on this topic. I have illustrated a few stretching techniques but there are many more to explore.

Tony Trainer.