The air is crisp with the start of a new morning. The birds are chirping. The sun is shining. The bones are creaking as I crawl out of bed. Lately, when I call my grandmother, we can both sympathize over the fact that our bodies are sore and our joints feel like they have rusted over. The constant pain that followed after sitting during a lecture or walking up a flight of stairs was the tell-all sign that I needed to start stretching because my body was not as nimble as I believed it to be. This fact was only highlighted when I started training for a half-marathon and could actively feel my knees, quads, glutes, calves and more seizing as I ran a subtle three miles. My resolution for May is to stretch everyday so take this as your sign to do the same.
Why?
If you are chuckling to yourself as you scroll through this article and thinking I am a 20 years old. I don’t need to stretch. I’m young and healthy and limber! I have a newsflash for you: stretching is beneficial no matter your age or athletic ability. It too came as a shock that my own body would betray me in such a way; how dare it start to break down after I refused to stretch after a strenuous workout. Curses I say!
To answer your question as to why exactly stretching is important, it keeps your muscles and overall body happy and healthy in numerous ways. According to Harvard Medical School, if you do not maintain flexibility or range of motion in your joints, your muscles will shorten and become tight. When you try to perform an activity with those muscles, they will not be able to extend fully resulting in joint pain, strains and muscle damage. Have you ever discarded a rubber band to a forgotten drawer and then tried to stretch it years later? The outcome is a loud snap and a useless rubber band: same goes for muscles.
Essentially, you want your muscles to be long so that they are able to extend when called upon for running, jumping and any other requirement. Stretching has advantages beyond improving flexibility and range of motion. It can increase blood flow to your muscles, in turn, shortening recovery time and soreness after workouts. Furthermore, it can improve your posture and prevent back pain; stretching your hamstrings, glutes and hips can take tension off your lower back. Beyond the physical, stretching can act as a sort of meditation and stress relief. If you take 10 minutes out of your day to stretch, you are taking 10 minutes for yourself to breathe and calm your mind.
How?
Stretching everyday does not require much training, but it does require consistency. My tip: pick a specific time every day and get into a routine. You could kick off your morning with a five minute stretch to wake up your body. Maybe you need to unwind before bed and tease out the weight of the day with a quick downward dog. An important note: if you are exercising, it is crucial to stretch before AND after as you are putting your body under additional stress. You should be stretching your entire body, and pay extra attention to whichever muscles you focused on during your workout.
Growing up playing sports, you are bound to stretch quite a bit. However, I did not do a great job of taking the diligence of stretching before and after basketball games into my post-high school life. Now that I am back in the swing of things, I can put all those years of knowledge about dynamic and static stretching to the test! For my daily stretching routine or to cool down after a workout, I like to start standing up and work my way to the ground. I start by flexing my shoulders, upper back and biceps with a cross body stretch, overhead tricep, neck rolls or oblique stretch. Then I will move to my back, hamstrings and glutes by performing knee to chest, flamingos, cross toe touches, standing calf stretch and side lunges. Finally, I will end on the ground with hamstring stretches, figure fours, cat cows, kneeling hip flexor, pigeon and runners pose.
It may be hard to build a stretching routine from scratch, so turn towards a video as guidance. YouTube is flush with routines that will meet any time or muscle constraint you desire. Here is a 5 min full body stretch from MadFit to get you started. You can also check out Juice & Toya’s 10 min lower body stretch if you want something more targeted. For Peloton members, there are a plethora of stretching videos; I recommend trying one out with Cody Rigsby, Dennis Morton or Rebecca Kennedy! If that’s outside your price range, Nike Training Club offers stretching and other fitness opportunities. Plus their app is free!
Time to get stretchy! Even if you think stretching isn’t for you, I promise in 10 years your body will thank you. It is a hard thought to reckon with that our bodies inevitably age, but better to do all you can to maintain the mobility and strength you have today. You don’t want to be that fragile, forgotten rubber band so hit those downward dogs and lunges!