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    How Often and How Long To Stretch: What Do You Stretch For?

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    Rajesh S V
    Stretching can be done daily as part of a warm up routine to achieve a predictable range of motion, but stretching to increase flexibility should be done every other day or less frequently. For activities like dance or gymnastics that require a high degree of flexibility, daily stretching is necessary before classes and workouts to properly prepare the body. However, stretching too frequently to gain a greater range of motion can cause micro-tears in the tissues and lead to injury, as it takes 48-72 hours for the body to recover from such efforts.

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    How Often and How Long To Stretch: What Do You Stretch For?

    Uploaded by

    Rajesh S V
    63 views2 pages
    Stretching can be done daily as part of a warm up routine to achieve a predictable range of motion, but stretching to increase flexibility should be done every other day or less frequently. For activities like dance or gymnastics that require a high degree of flexibility, daily stretching is necessary before classes and workouts to properly prepare the body. However, stretching too frequently to gain a greater range of motion can cause micro-tears in the tissues and lead to injury, as it takes 48-72 hours for the body to recover from such efforts.

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    Stretching can be done daily as part of a warm up routine to achieve a predictable range of motion, but stretching to increase flexibility should be done every other day or less frequently. For activities like dance or gymnastics that require a high degree of flexibility, daily stretching is necessary before classes and workouts to properly prepare the body. However, stretching too frequently to gain a greater range of motion can cause micro-tears in the tissues and lead to injury, as it takes 48-72 hours for the body to recover from such efforts.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as pdf or txt
    63 views2 pages

    How Often and How Long To Stretch: What Do You Stretch For?

    Uploaded by

    Rajesh S V
    Stretching can be done daily as part of a warm up routine to achieve a predictable range of motion, but stretching to increase flexibility should be done every other day or less frequently. For activities like dance or gymnastics that require a high degree of flexibility, daily stretching is necessary before classes and workouts to properly prepare the body. However, stretching too frequently to gain a greater range of motion can cause micro-tears in the tissues and lead to injury, as it takes 48-72 hours for the body to recover from such efforts.

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    © All Rights Reserved
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    of 2

    How Often and How Long To Stretch

    Paul, My instructor stretches us every day before class. But you said to stretch every other
    day. Which is right?

    I get this question a lot. How often should you stretch? The answer is found in the follow up
    question:

    What do you stretch for?


    Stretching like strengthening can be used for many goals. The schedule changes
    depending on what the target exercise are applied for. For an easier understanding let’s
    take a basic squat or a lunge. You can see 3 different people doing that exercise for
    different reason and of course with different, resistance, frequency and intensity.

    • One person does the squat or lunge as a weight loss program.


    • Another as a bulking technique. (Bodybuilder)
    • Third to improve squat itself. (Powerlifter)
    • Fourth as an athletic conditioning for legs. (Track athlete)

    They will do the exercise differently. And this can apply to any strength exercise, squat or
    lunge just being an example.

    The same thing applies to stretching.


    There many reasons to stretch. We will talk about only two, since they are the focus of the
    question.

    “How come in class we stretch every day, and you recommend to do it every other day?”

    Dance, cheer, martial arts, gymnastics, etc classes focus on flexibility depending
    skills. So stretching is a part of a warm up. You need to do that every time to have the
    flexibility needed for your skills.

    If you need to do a split jump and you did not warm up into a split, you have a poor skill
    performance or an injury. Therefore your instructor does this every day before the workout.

    As long as you don’t try to increase your range of motion every day, you are ok. It is fine to
    stretch to get to your predictable “post warm up” range.

    When It Is Ok To Stretch Every Day


    This simply means that if your straddle is 130 degrees cold and 180 warm, you need to
    warm up. The key is this: you can do a 180 straddle, you just need a warm. So stretching to
    get from 130-180 every day is ok.
    When It Is Not
    On the other hand. If you are 100 cold and 140 warm, you can stretch every day, but only to
    140. You should not try to go past 140 every day.

    When you try to increase your maximum range, you do micro damage to your tissues. It
    takes 48-72 hours to recover. An unconditioned beginner may take even longer, especially
    at the start of the program.

    So if you are working on getting more range of motion, and you are not just warming
    up, you can’t do it every 24 hours. It will lead to you getting hurt.

    With proper supplementation, massage, external applications, length of time before injury
    can be extended. This simply means that if a regular person will get injured after several
    days of 24 hour interval stretching, someone who “does everything right” will take few days
    longer to get injured.

    In Conclusion
    You can stretch as a part of your warm up every day. However you should, stretch for
    deeper flexibility every other day or even less frequently.

    To see a video about how often to stretch please click here

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