Category Archives for "Flex/Mobility Programs"

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Top 10 Health Benefits of Stretching

Stretching is very important for flexibility, range of motion and injury prevention. Incorporating stretching into your daily workouts is a given but including it in your day routine is just as important to health and body functioning as regular exercise. It relaxes your muscles and increases blood flow and nutrients to your cartilage and muscles.

Here are the top 10 health benefits of stretching:

• Encourages an optimistic outlook – A buildup of stress causes your muscles to contract, making you feel tense and uneasy. This tension can lead to having a negative impact on mind as well as your body. Stretching exercises have powerful stress-busting abilities. Stretching soon after waking up can help jump-start the mind and body. Stretching loosens tight muscles which helps your muscles both relax and increase blood flow. It also encourages the release of endorphins, providing a sense of tranquility and euphoria. Stretching directly before bed will even give you a more comfortable sleeping experience.

• Fortifies posture – Stretching helps ensure correct posture by lengthening tight muscles that pull areas of the body away from their intended position and keeping your muscles loose. Stretching the muscles of the lower back, chest and shoulders can help keep the spine in better alignment and improve overall posture by relieving aches and pains. With reduced pain, there is a reduced desire to hunch or slouch.

• Enables flexibility – The most established and obvious benefit of stretching is improving flexibility and range of motion. An effective flexibility training program can improve your physical performance and help reduce your risk of injury. By improving your range of motion, your body requires less energy to make the same movements and you also will have more flexible joints thus lessening the likelihood of injuries acquired during workouts or during daily activities.

• Increase stamina  – Stretching loosens your muscles and tendons which relieves muscle fatigue and increases blood flow. The longer you exercise the more energy you be burn, typically causing one to grow fatigued. With stretching, you can delay the onset of muscle fatigue by ensuring oxygen is efficiently flowing through your blood, thereby increasing your endurance.

• Decreases risk of injury – it will help to supply a greater nutrient supply to muscles, thereby reducing muscle soreness and helping to speed recovery from muscle and joint injuries.

• Improve energy levels – Sometimes you may have trouble staying awake during your long, dragging day. If you’re feeling this way then it might help to get out of your seat and do a few good stretches for a boost of energy, helping your mind and body be more alert. Muscles tighten when we get tired and that makes us feel even more lethargic, so feel free to stand up and do some stretches. It will help you to quickly and efficiently revitalize your energy levels.

• Promotes blood circulation – it increases blood flow to the muscles. Not only will this help reduce post-workout soreness and shorten recovery time, but it will improve overall health. Greater blood circulation helps promote cell growth and organ function. The heart rate will also lower since it doesn’t have to work as hard and blood pressure will become more even and consistent.

• Improve athletic performance – If your muscles are already contracted because you haven’t stretched, then they will be less effective during exercise. Regular stretching will relax all of your muscles and therefore enable them to be more available during exercise.

• Reduced soreness – Stretching before and after a workout gives your muscles time to relax. Increases in blood flow increase nutrient supply to the muscles and relieve soreness in the muscles after a workout.

• Reduces cholesterol – Paired with a healthy diet, engaging in prolonged stretching exercises can help reduce cholesterol in the body. This could prevent and even reverse the hardening of arteries, helping one avoid heart diseases.

SOURCE…www.healthfitnessrevolution.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Post-Workout Behavior, Why It Matters

Do wonders for your workout.

Follow these after-exercise tips … Often, we feed the “fitness meter” its daily investment only to exit the Center and overcompensate for our healthy activity. Suddenly, we may feel entitled to eat that cheeseburger and fries, followed up with a couple hours on the couch watching mindless TV. Use your post-workout actions to enhance your fitness efforts. A healthy lifestyle goes beyond a daily exercise session. Follow these tips to maximize your fitness efforts:

EAT Well.

An intense workout does not justify a junk-food binge or even a big meal. We often assume we burned more calories than we actually did. An effective solution: Focus less on food’s calories and more on how much activity it actually takes to burn off that food. For example, a popular fast-food grilled chicken ranch BLT sandwich (approximately 440 calories) would take a 154-pound, 5’10” male about an hour of weightlifting to burn off. One post-workout indulgence can cancel the benefits of an entire fitness session. After your workout, keep the healthy vibe going with a nutritious snack or meal packed with the protein and carbs needed to replace essential nutrients used during exercise. Smart post-workout food choices also help the body recover better from the physical exertion expended—and increase your fitness success.

Rehydrate.

Water consumption is essential before, during, and after a workout. Experts suggest drinking 24 ounces of fluid for each pound lost during exercise. This can be determined by weighing yourself before and after a workout.

Drink beyond your thirst. Thirst is not always an accurate indicator of hydration. Monitor urine frequency and color to assure you are consuming enough fluids. After an intense or lengthy workout, consider a sports drink to replenish lost electrolytes as well.

 

Stretch.

Your future self will thank you a thousand times for stretching regularly, especially after exercise. Those who skip this essential part of their workout, including young athletes, live to regret it. The negative effects appear in joints and muscles later in life, causing everything from decreased range-of-motion to chronic aches.

Schedule 10 to 15 minutes at the end of your workout to complete a full-body stretch. Muscles will be warm and flexible then, allowing for easy, deep stretching. This post-workout habit helps prevent injuries, and maintains healthy joints and muscles. It also acts as an overall cooldown for the body, which helps the heart and circulatory system transition.

Keep Moving .

How we spend time beyond the workout has a significant impact on health and weight loss goals. Research continues to reveal the importance of movement throughout the day. Physical activity helps burn calories and improve overall health. Formal fitness is a positive and essential element of a healthy lifestyle. Yet, the benefits can be negated by sedentary habits the rest of the day.

Regular exercise definitely improves your health. However, avid exercisers can unintentionally increase their risk for heart disease, obesity, and other health issues by how they spend the rest of their waking hours. By staying mobile, you improve your health and continue to burn a bunch of calories beyond what you accomplish at the Center. Easy, ongoing movement also helps keep joints and muscles flexible.

Don’t sabotage your workout efforts. Complement them! Follow through fitness with the healthy habits your body deserves.

 

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