Stretching- why it’s important

At Phillip Island Massage Therapy we believe that stretching is vital in improving posture and maintaining healthy muscle physiology. By incorporating it into your daily routine, it can help increase your range of movement in joints as well as preventing musculoskeletal injuries.
Incorporating stretching into your exercise routine is just as important to your overall health as exercising on a regular basis. This is important especially if you are trying to increase flexibility or recovering from a soft tissue injury.

Benefits of stretching

• Improves posture- Stretching helps correct your posture by lengthening tight muscles and fascia and tendons. By stretching back, shoulder and hips it can help keep the spine in better alignment and improve overall posture by relieving aches and pains.

• Increases flexibility and increases your range of motion. By following a regular program you can train your nervous system to take on a greater degree of muscle lengthening without triggering pain signals. When you increase your flexibility during stretching the muscle fibres and tendons become greater in length therefore allowing you to increase your flexibility and range of motion in joints.

• Injury prevention- Warming up with gentle exercises and stretching you can prepare your muscles before physical activity. Stretching increases blood and nutrient supply to muscles, therefore reducing muscle soreness and strain as well as helping to speed up recovery from muscle and joint injury.

• Increases energy levels- There are times during the day where you might feel lethargic and tired. By incorporating just ten minutes of stretching per day, you can help your mind and body become more alert. In addition it provides you with a mental break as well as boosting your energy levels.

• Prevents DOMS- Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) occurs 24 to 48 hours after physical activity. The harder the intensity the more painful the DOMS. This is due to the microscopic tears in the muscle fibres from eccentric lengthening of the muscles. By following a proper stretching program while exercising can help reduce DOMS.

couple stretching together

Rules to avoid injury:

• When you stretch it should always be to the point of discomfort never to the point of pain. For example. You should only feel mild discomfort when you stretch. If you start to feel sharp pain that’s when you are overstretching you can risk causing injury.

• Always perform a few warm up exercises prior to stretching to increase blood flow and circulation to the muscles to avoid injury. This is vital especially prior to performing cardiovascular activity or weight training.

• As you become more flexible, move into each position slowly. This allows you increase your flexibility as you stretch.

• Take a big deep breath as you stretch each muscle group. Also take big deep breaths as you hold the stretch position for 15 to 30 seconds .

• Never bounce, jerk or force a stretch as you can risk tearing a muscles and ligaments of joints.

If you would like more information on the right type of stretching program for you please contact us at Phillip Island Massage Therapy.