Benefits of Stretching

• What are the benefits of and five cautions for stretching?

Decreased aches & pains, enhanced ability to move freely, possible decreased risk of injury, recovery from injury, enhanced athletic performance, reversal of age-related flexibility declines, improved posture & appearance, decreased muscles soreness after exercise, and it feels good. The cautions are: Don't overstretch, especially when your muscles are cold and tight.You can get better flexibility, but only up to a point. It depends on your genetics. Other people may be more flexible than you, but that doesn't mean you haven't been working. Strengthen muscles that you stretch and stretch muscles that you strengthen. If you feel pain when you stretch, especially in your joints, stop right away. Delay to stretch for awhile after you've done exercise, or else your flexibility will degrade.

• What factors affect flexibility?

Joint structure, your joints help you bend and turn, soft tissues, these are the tissues that are like elastic and resist a bit more than the other muscles, inactivity, if you are inactive your muscles will be soft so they won't like it if you suddenly stretch them, muscles temperature, when muscles are warm and fluid they have a much easier time stretching, so do some light jogging or hopping, age, flexibility can be improved at almost any age, including 80-90, genetics, people genetically are either more flexible or less flexible, gender, girls tend to be more flexible than guys, obesity, and neural factors, the tissues, organs, and reflexes of the body.

• What are the two types of flexibility?

Static flexibility & dynamic flexibility.

• What are the four types of stretching?

Static, dynamic, active, & passive. Static is slowly stretching for relatively long periods of time. Dynamic is semi-fast and big movement. Active is you use your own muscles to stretch yourself. Passive is that you use someone else's help to stretch your muscles.

• What are some basic guidelines for flexibility development?

The goal is to create and keep a good range of motion in your muscles & joints for each movement in daily life. Stretch 2-3 days a week. Do low-intensity stretches, they're the best. Do 10-30 sec stretches at least 4 times for each group of muscles.

• What are the five principles of flexibility development?

Progressive overload, putting more pressure over time, specificity, make yours stretches specific, reversibility, overtime if you stop working on your muscles they will lose most of the progress you have done, individual differences, people have different levels of flexibility, and balance, make sure you work on each side of the body the same, if you work too much on one side, you will be off balance.

• What are five flexibility exercises for basic fitness?

Hamstring stretch, calf-stretch, quadricep stretch, deltoid stretch, and spinal twist.

• Can you differentiate between the safe and contraindicated exercises illustrated in the chapter?

One: Don't do a yoga plow/ Do knee tucks to chest. Don't do the yoga plow because you could seriously harm your lower back and neck. The knee tucks to the chest will stretch out your legs. Two:  Don't do knee-tucks to the chest by the knee/Do do knee-tucks to the chest by the thigh. If you press on the knee, you could ruin a joint, if you press on the thigh you still get the stretch and the pressure is off your knee joint. Three: Don;t do full head rolls/Do half-head rolls to the side. Doing full head rolls could harm the spine in your neck, head rolls are meant to stretch the muscles in the neck, not the spine. Four: Don't do the original hurdler stretch/Do the alternative hurdler stretch. In the original hurdler stretch you put your back knee on the ground and bend it behind you, this could twist a muscles or hurt your joints. The alternative stretch is the fold fold your knee in front of you.

• What are the general guidelines for identifying exercises that increase risk of injury?

If you feel pain, if your joints feel bad after the stretch, or you actually hurt yourself.

• How do flexibility and muscular fitness contribute to wellness? 

You need flexibility for everyday needs. Bending to pick something up, looking behind you while walking, stretching to reach something, etc. And also if your muscles aren't so well, then your flexibility will be low. You couldn't to much without some pain if your muscles are really bad.