In the chaos of our everyday lives and busy schedules and deadlines to meet, its east to overlook something as simple as stretching.
Whether you are an office worker glued to a desk, a training athlete pushing their body to its limits or someone who is trying to stay and active and mobile stretching offers benefits that reach far beyond flexibility.
Adding stretching into our day to day lives can make noticeable differences in supporting better movement patterns and reducing certain painful movement patterns caused by muscle tension and stiffness.
Here are some reasons to why you should be implementing Stretching into your day-to-day routines.
1. Increased Flexibility.
Stretching helps lengthen muscles and tendons improving the elasticity and flexibility throughout body as a whole.
Over time or if you have a particular muscular issue muscles naturally become tighter and shorter due to a lack of movement or from prolonged sitting or repetitive actions.
Stretching helps to lengthen these muscles increasing the range of movement making daily movements easier and enhancing physical performance in both workouts and everyday tasks.
2. Improves Posture.
From looking at our phones or sitting at a desk all day our posture is always being tested.
Stretching helps to realign and balance muscles which may be causing those unwanted postural behaviours caused by tightened and shortened muscles.
3. Helps prevent Injury.
By stretching and increasing the flexibility of our muscles, tendons and joints the risk of strains and sprains and other movement related injuries are lowered as our body can move more freely and under less strain during sudden repetitive lengthening movements in workouts or our sport specific movement patterns.
4. Boosts Circulation.
By stretching each muscle out, it helps to increase the blood flow to these muscles, which increases the oxygen and nutrient volume delivered to each muscle.
This therefore helps supports individuals’ muscles recovery and health and gets individuals back to activity without that post activity soreness and fatigue delay.
5. Promotes relaxation and stress relief.
With the chaos and stresses in our day to day lives which seems to never end, just taking time to stretch activates that parasympathetic nervous system.
This helps to lower stress, reduce anxiety and promote a sense of calm as you solely focus on the stretch and length in that moment of time leaving you feeling more restored and calmer when leaving us.
There are many other benefits that Stretching can have on the body and mind for all individuals no matter your age, activity level, or profession.
Stretching is a powerful and accessible tool that should be utilised more for supporting long term physical health and wellbeing.
Come and join us for out specific Stretching classes or at our Mat and Reformer Pilates or Yoga classes which all include Stretching flows to help you feel taller than when you first came through ours doors.
