Surely you are an athletic person and therefore, you are a person who needs to stretch and know well how to stretch.
A stretch is a type of exercise in which we try to leave the muscle relaxed and stretched. Stretching is the opposite of contraction, which is why it’s good when the muscle is too stiff.
One of the most well-known pieces of advice from trainers and physical trainers is that we should stretch after training. This has two key functions in our human body, which must be explained in order to understand stretching.
First of all, we are going to cool the muscle, which is warm after exercising, thus avoiding injuries. Secondly, we are going to relax the muscle fasciae, which are stiff, making them not hurt the next day and thus favoring the supply of oxygen to the muscle, necessary to improve muscle performance.
Stretching is good at the end of any sport, whether its sports related to bodybuilding and weightlifting, or sports more related to physical performance like athletics or cycling.
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In both types of sports (anaerobic and aerobic), the muscle needs to be stretched at the end, to promote muscle recovery and loosen the muscle.
The bad thing is that many people don’t know how to stretch properly, there are even people who never stretch (no wonder they have so many injuries).
That’s why we’re here to teach you a little bit about how to stretch and how to stretch, so that at the end of any type of exercise, you can be back in an optimal muscle state, with good oxygen circulation and good muscle performance.
I bring you 4 stretches, one for each part of the body, choosing the parts of the body that seize most easily, in order to correct all the most common problems more easily
Stretching Instructions
- Stretching the hamstring:
The first muscle we’re going to stretch in this little tutorial is the biceps femoris. The biceps femoris is a muscle located at the back of the leg, just behind the quadriceps, being a muscle that seizes a lot in exercises such as the squat, athletics, and other exercises such as sprints. The way to stretch it is simple, we are going to stand with our legs stretched out facing the floor and we are going to try to reach the floor with the tips of our hands, without bending our knees. It doesn’t matter if you don’t get to the ground, the key is to feel how the muscle stretches, so don’t worry about flexibility, as this is not our goal today. - Stretch the back and pectorals:
Now it’s the turn of the back and pectorals, widely used muscles located in the torso part of the human body, which seize up a lot in bodybuilding (it’s for you, those of you who only train your chest in the gym). To stretch the chest, we are going to grab a surface with the arm stretched out facing outwards and we are going to pull clockwise if we want to stretch the left pectoralis and counterclockwise if we want to stretch the right pectoral. For the back, we’re going to hang from some surface, as if we were going to do pull-ups, but without doing them. The body weight will stretch your back and you will notice how it creaks. - Stretch the calf:
The calf is a muscle located below the biceps femoris, which is mostly made up of slow fibers and is used a lot when running. When we run, the calf is loaded a lot, so we should always try to stretch after exercising. We’re going to stand in front of a wall that doesn’t have anything in it and stand with one leg forward. Now we’re going to rest the toes of the front leg on the wall. Now we’re going to go forward, without moving our legs, just our torso. We must notice how he pulls us by the calf to make it right. Now we must stretch the opposite calf, to avoid asymmetry. - Stretch the quadriceps:
Finally we are going to stretch the quadriceps, a part of the body located at the top of the leg and which is very susceptible to being damaged on some occasions of very strong exercises. The way to stretch them is to sit with your legs stretched out and then try to touch the balls of your feet with your hands without bending your knees. So, we are also going to stretch other parts such as the biceps femoris and the gluteus, as well as the arms. Try to vary the exercise, trying to move from one leg to the other to make the exercise more entertaining and a little different. You can also try opening your legs and trying to go towards them, or contracting one leg and only going towards one leg. In short, try to vary this exercise to make it more intuitive and don’t be afraid to try to get a little more to play every day.