The benefits of stretching

Stretching muscles well is not a complement in the sports world, but a fundamental part of training. Throughout the training, your muscles and joints undergo a lot of load and impact and suffer, so it is important to reserve a few minutes before and after sports to stretch.

As you can see, the stretching phase is fundamental so that the muscles can withstand all this effort without being affected and, most importantly, without leading to injury.

Below you will see the benefits, the importance of stretching and some tips to improve your work.

Benefits of Stretching Correctly

In general, we can say that some of the benefits of stretching are: increased flexibility, injury prevention and improved coordination of muscles.

On the one hand, when you stretch before sports practice, you prepare the muscle. When we tighten and stretch the muscle we are preparing it for the effort, this translates directly into avoiding injuries and muscle fever. On the other hand, it also serves to gain flexibility, that is, so that the muscles do not have so much tension and this translates to body and mental relaxation.

In short, why is stretching so important?

• Muscle tension will decrease
• Prevention of future injuries
• Prepares the muscles for physical activity
• It’s positive for circulation
• It accelerates the reabsorption of lactic acid and that prevents muscle fatigue
• Improves the posture
• Improves mood, as a result of the release of endorphins

Tips to improve your stretching

• Stretch before and after your routines.
• Make stretching a routine and take your time to do it.
• Control breathing with each stretch.
• Stretch each muscle to make exercise more complete.
• Do not stretch muscles in which you have had injuries without the supervision of your doctor.
• In case of pain, do not force more.

What kind of stretching to do

The stretch should last about 15 minutes and each stretch about 30 seconds. It is important to work all the muscles of the body, not only that muscle group that we have used, as well as, before and after sports practice.

We can divide the stretches in many ways, but today we will only talk about whether they are active or passive. Active stretches; those we do before training, to activate ourselves, and passive stretches; those we do after training, to relax, or to perform specific flexibility sessions.

As I have already mentioned in previous sections, stretching correctly carries many benefits and it is important to have a good stretch planning. Applications such as BEKEEP help you to organize and prepare well stretching, as well as sports practice.

You can also take a look at our article dedicated to those who want to start jogging.