Getting a proper warm-up before physical activity is one of the most essential facets of an exercise routine or any other labor intensive endeavor. Although many people consider a warm-up a waste of time, properly initiating activity for your body can help your performance in sport, reduce the likelihood of injury during activity, encourage proper utilization of nutrients and body energy and even in a severe extreme, save your life. Warming up your body is a fairly simple procedure and can be accomplished many different ways but the simple inclusion of a warm-up to your activity can have immeasurable benefit.
The definition of a warm-up is just what it sounds - an slight increasing in body temperature. This is accomplished by simply moving around for a little bit before tackling the task at hand. In some sports like baseball and golf for instance, an athlete will not only warm-up before starting a match but also during the match. Have you ever seen either one of these athletes take a practice swing before attempting to connect with the ball? This quick little practice is going to increase their body temperature very slightly but more importantly for them it is also initiating an musculo-neurologic (muscle and nerve) memory pattern. Warming up is also necessary for loosening stiff and tightened tissues both within joints and your blood and lymphatic vessels. Finally warming up can help to encourage passage of essential nutrients and water in and out of your cells to keep up their energy and enable your body to work at a higher level longer.
Types of Warm-Up:
Cardiovascular - A cardiovascular warm up is simply a method of gradually increasing your body’s temperature, breathing patterns and heart rate to a level elevated above rest enough to allow you to safely perform exercise. This is probably the most common warm up in a gym or fitness setting as cardiovascular equipment is usually readily available. To achieve cardiovascular warm-up simply initiate movement (biking, jogging, rowing, swimming, elliptical) at an easy pace for five to ten minutes or until your body feels loose. Don’t attack the machine right away. Rather ease into the exercise starting at a slow pace and slowly increase your intensity until your breathing, heart rate, and body temperature have risen.
Stretching - Stretching can be used as a warm up as long as the body is not too cold initially. Dancers, athletes, and even heavy laborers will often use a mild stretch to get their body ready to tackle the coming activity. Both static and dynamic stretching are acceptable means of warming up the body, although the dynamic method may take a little less time because of the greater amount of energy needed to engage in a dynamic stretch. (See “Is Stretching Necessary?” in February of ’08 for more information on types of stretching.) When stretching for a warm-up, like the cardiovascular method, the initial stretch should be mild and should gradually increase in intensity as your body adjusts to the activity. Be sure to stretch the parts of the body which you intend to use, as a simple stretch of body parts unrelated to your endeavor won’t be as productive. A static stretch warm-up will usually last about 10 to 20 minutes depending on the ensuing activity and a dynamic stretch will require between 5 and 15 minutes for a proper warm-up.
NOTE: Some professionals will distinguish between stretching and calisthenics for warming up, but in this context, mild calisthenics falls under the dynamic stretching category.
Breathing and Meditating - These methods of warm-up are derived from eastern practices like yoga and martial arts and may be a bit more difficult to engage for satisfactory results. It is possible to increase one’s breathing, heart rate, and even your body temperature through sheer concentration and methodical breathing methods, but again, this is a skill unto itself and is not usually successful without proper training. If you are capable of proper meditation or pranayama yoga, you can use these energies as a successful warm up but it may take 15 minutes or more. Many people who engage in such eastern practices find them to be the most soothing manner of initiating a new activity, but they are not for everyone.
Benefits of a Warm-Up:
Musculo-skeletal (muscles and bones) - In a sedentary state, the one part of our body that possibly gets the most rest is our structure. Our muscles require an incredible amount of our internal energy to enact movement and, naturally, more aggressive or intense movements increase that energy expenditure. Therefore, when our muscles don’t have to do anything, they don’t. Neither do the tendons, ligaments, and other soft tissues associate with our physical internal structure. Because they are relatively inactive in a resting state, they are not prepared to immediately initiate high intensity movement. Muscles and other structural soft tissues in your joints and along your bones require great amounts of fluid and lubrication as well - much like the moving parts of a car. When active, these tissues are flooded with lubrication and energy to keep the body moving. When inactive, however, imagine these tissues as a sponge that sits on the side of your sink - when it’s not being used, it slowly dries out and becomes brittle - so too do our tissues. To warm-up the sponge we need simply to run it through water. To warm-up our muscular and connective tissues, we need to engage in one of the three aforementioned methods. Imagine how that sponge would feel if you tried to wash a cheese grater without putting some water on it first? This is how your joints feel without the proper warm-up, and they’ll let you know by aching later.
Neuro-muscular (muscles and nerves) - In order for our body to work, your muscles must be in constant communication with your nerves and your control centers in your brain and spinal column. If you are going to engage in a task of skill in which the motions of the task are unnatural or require practiced precision, a warm-up will be necessary to initiate and enhance proper neuro-muscular pathways. This is one reason a baseball player and golfer will take a few practice swings before attacking the ball. Other activities require similar nervous stimulation: just about any sport, dance, or labor which will require a good deal of physical control. You may not need a warm up to pick up a pencil, but its a good idea to warm up if you are going to repeatedly lift and carry bags of concrete for instance. And remember, if you were in a resting state before tackling the activity, your muscles are in a state of lethargy anyhow so they need a little kick start.
Cardio-vascular (heart and blood vessels) This is where a warm-up can be life saving. As we age, all of the tissues in our body lose their structural integrity to some extent. Our soft tissues become harder, and our hard tissues become softer and more brittle. It is just the way nature takes its toll on your body over the years. Some of the soft tissues in your body make up your heart and blood vessels. These too will naturally harden as you get older. If you combine this natural hardening with the additional stiffening and blockage caused by excessive cholesterol you could have a small bomb waiting to go off in your body. If you increase your blood pressure too quickly by engaging in severe activity without warming up, this fragile point in your blood vessels may not be able to take the strain and could rupture. This, of course, is not good. However, even if you do have a blockage of some sort in your arteries, a nice, slow warm up will help the stiff tissues loosen and decrease the chance of an increase in blood pressure causing a rupture. If you are elderly, or are at risk for blood pressure related maladies, discuss with your doctor the necessary precautions for starting an exercise program. A good cardio-vascular warm up could take 10 minutes or more if you are in a risk category.
Cellular - This benefit was discussed in relation to both muscle tissue and heart and vessel tissue. A good warm-up promotes fluid and nutrient exchange within our cells. This exchange is vital to keep our joints lubricate, our nerves communicating, our muscles moving, and our heart, vessels, and lungs flexible to the onset of a new activity. Every change in our body happens at a cellular level and your whole body is of course made of cells. This means that every part of your body benefits from a warm-up.
The last thing to note about a warm-up is that it has to be in immediate proximity to the activity in which you will be partaking. You can’t warm up at home then drive to the gym and expect it to still be effective. Your body is too quick to recover and much of your tissue will have returned to it’s dry sponge state from sitting in the car. A warm-up needs to occur immediately before the exercise. Different people find they require different amounts of time to warm up. The recommended time frame is 5 minutes for most activity, but I personally like 10 because I feel my body is not yet ready to perform optimally with 5 minutes. Some people who have chronic pain or other conditions may feel best from a full 15 to 20 minute warm up such that they are nearly sweating before even beginning the task at hand. In general, you can’t warm-up too much as long as your temperature increase is mild and gradual. You can easily, however, not warm-up enough or, heaven forbid, not at all...
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Saturday, February 9, 2008
Hydration
Literally every single cell in your body contains water. In fact most cells - besides fat cells - comprise more water than other solid materials. There is an occasional debate between scientists and doctors as to how much of your body weight is water - some say about 65% others give numbers up to 85% - but either way it is a lot. A 185 pound man holds about 120 pounds of water! A popular TV show once called humans “ugly bags of mostly water”. I don’t agree with the ugly part, but we certainly are mostly water.
As it turns out, water is a very active molecule. Science bases much of its points of reference on the properties of water. Compared to other molecular compounds, water is transferred from solid to liquid to gas fairly easily. Because water is so productive, however, it constantly needs to be cycled within our body. The cycle is simply the regular intake, decomposition, and expulsion of the H2O water molecule. Remember, water is in every single cell in your body, but each cell may use that water a little differently.
Interestingly, water is actually a waste product of a variety of chemical processes in the body as well as a nutrient and source of energy. With all this water moving around inside of you, your body has also evolved in such a manner that makes it very good at releasing this molecule into the air. You continuously excrete water through your skin - albeit slowly - and as we all know, if your body temperature rises, you release a combination of water and electrolytes called sweat. Every time you breathe, blow your nose, or make that trip to the rest room, you are releasing water. You body doesn’t have any direct means of putting that water back, however, at least not without some conscious action from you.
It is very easy to take in water. Because there is water in every living thing, each time you eat or drink anything, you get a little water in you. Usually, if something is in liquid form such that it is drinkable, it is because that substance is full of water so drinking, as you would expect, is the best way to replace water. Drinking pure water is the best way to ensure that your body can do with your new hydration what it likes as well. If you drink something - fruit juice, soda, alcohol - that contains some flavoring or other components other than the basic water, those components have to be digested and used like anything else. Your body actually measures its necessity for nutrients and food based upon the balance that exists between various essential minerals and electrolytes and water. If you have too much water, your body will simply tell you to go to the rest room. If you have too little, you will feel thirsty. Oddly enough, though, over time our sensory perception of thirsty has become muddled a little bit. Sometimes the sensation of thirst can be confused with the sensation of hunger so instead of drinking something, we eat something - forcing our body to use water to digest - making us more thirsty. It is sort of a goofy conundrum.
In order to digest just about anything your body combines the food with water and flushes it out of your system. If you drink a soda which is loaded with water, sugar (even fake sugar) and caffeine, you’ll actually have to release the water in order to digest the other substances. The same is true for fruit juice, although some of the substances found in fruit juice are helpful in their own right. Alcohol actually goes beyond the regular combining process for digestion and attracts extra water, forcing your body to release even more of it’s hydration that it typically might. It is, therefore, important that we drink pure water frequently - several times a day. This is not to say that we shouldn’t indulge in juice, soda or even alcohol, but you aren’t helping your body as much as you can if these are the only substances you are willing to drink.
So how much water do we need? Basic health information dictates that we should drink eight, eight ounce glasses of water a day at minimum. An eight ounce glass of water is only the volume of one cup so it’s not that hard to get this amount of water into yourself at one sitting. If you are active, you are probably creating sweat and increasing your breathing meaning you need to replace more water. If you are consistently active, look to taking in 12 to 15 eight ounce glasses of water per day. Carrying a water bottle around with you and taking frequent sips or gulps is a great way to constantly hydrate yourself. Most individual size water bottles contain between 12 and 16 ounces. If you manage to drink the water contents of that bottle five or six times in a day, you’ve got plenty of water in your system (remember that you will take in water from other sources as well).
You can actually tell if you are drinking enough water each time you go to the rest room. If your urine is clear, it means that your body is releasing more water than other nutrients and, therefore, has plenty of water to keep itself going. If, however, your urine is a dark shade of yellow, your body is actually releasing nutrients in an effort to hold onto water in your system. These nutrients could have been used if you had enough hydration to handle them, but your body needs to conserve water so do it a favor - drink a glass or two. The exception to this indicator occurs if you take vitamins of some sort. Usually vitamins contain much more of a particular compound than your body needs at that moment so it will use what it can and release the rest, causing your urine to be a bright yellow. If you are taking a vitamin and drinking enough water, this yellow excretion should only happen once a day within a few hours of taking the vitamin.
Because your body operates on a balance of nutrients and water, we can assume that proper hydration is also a function of correct amounts of elements like sodium, potassium and other electrolytes in your system. This balance is the reason we now have sports drinks. The creators of these drinks recognized that a highly active person will lose significant amounts of nutrients along with water loss when they sweat and consume energy. Sports drinks contain elements like potassium, sodium, sugars and occasionally other vitamins and minerals which may aid the body in recovery of worn tissues and lost energy. The key to the purpose of these drinks, however, is for whom they were designed - highly active people. There is a lot of sugar in sports drinks. It is put there intentionally to replace lost energy as a highly active person is exerting work. These sugars are simple and quickly absorbed into the body and, if you are working very hard, quickly used as energy. If you are not a highly active person and if you are not engaging in extreme activity at the time you take a drink, there is no reason to need a sports drink.
Also, sports drinks are often very concentrated when bought off the shelf both to replenish nutrients lost from highly active athletes and for taste. Ultimately there is too much sugar in these drinks for the average person or even the average workout. I as a personal trainer who engages in very difficult workouts, wont consume a sports drink at its full concentration. Certainly the electrolytes in these drinks help during a workout so one way to get those nutrients and some of the energy necessary to complete your exercise is to cut the regular concentration of the drink with water. Pour out and save half of your regular sports drink, then refill the bottle with water. At this concentration you will have plenty of electrolyte replenishment for your workout without excess sugar.
Believe it or not, it is possible to drink too much water. This rare condition occurs when the body contains so much water relative to its accessible electrolytes that it literally shuts down because there ceases to be proper nutrient passage between cells. Hyper-hydration or the excess of water in balance to electrolytes is very dangerous and frequently fatal, however it is a condition which is very difficult to achieve. If you are a very long endurance athlete like a marathoner, distance triathlete, ironman/woman, or other extreme distance competitor you may need to consider hyper-hydration. Because your body releases electrolytes in sweat, if, during your extended activity (over the course of several hours) you only replenish yourself with water, you have a chance to create this imbalance. If you are in an organized even, the organizers are usually aware of this problem and will offer more than just water at check-stops. Now you’ll find sports drinks, energy bars, fruit, and even gummy bears to replenish the sugars in your body as well as the water. These other items can be helpful in maintaining the balance in your system. Another way to induce hyper-hydration is simply to drink too much water at one time without allowing your body to release it. You’d have to drink water at a magnitude of several gallons in an hour to achieve this level of imbalance. No one is ever that thirsty, and you stomach would be painfully full before you manage to drink too much. A radio contestant once managed to drink so much water as to induce hyper-hydration, but this was a contest and essentially no one does this on their own.
So even with water - as anything - going overboard can be detrimental to your body. Fortunately water is one of the main driving forces of life as we know it so too much water is a condition very difficult to achieve. Too little water, however, is frequently a problem afflicting many people in regular life. You need to make sure your body is getting plenty of pure water every day - to keep you systems running properly, for nutrition, and even to ward off infection. Just remember, at least 8, 8 ounce glasses per day and more than that if you are going to do anything active. Make sure that your body remains “mostly water”.
As it turns out, water is a very active molecule. Science bases much of its points of reference on the properties of water. Compared to other molecular compounds, water is transferred from solid to liquid to gas fairly easily. Because water is so productive, however, it constantly needs to be cycled within our body. The cycle is simply the regular intake, decomposition, and expulsion of the H2O water molecule. Remember, water is in every single cell in your body, but each cell may use that water a little differently.
Interestingly, water is actually a waste product of a variety of chemical processes in the body as well as a nutrient and source of energy. With all this water moving around inside of you, your body has also evolved in such a manner that makes it very good at releasing this molecule into the air. You continuously excrete water through your skin - albeit slowly - and as we all know, if your body temperature rises, you release a combination of water and electrolytes called sweat. Every time you breathe, blow your nose, or make that trip to the rest room, you are releasing water. You body doesn’t have any direct means of putting that water back, however, at least not without some conscious action from you.
It is very easy to take in water. Because there is water in every living thing, each time you eat or drink anything, you get a little water in you. Usually, if something is in liquid form such that it is drinkable, it is because that substance is full of water so drinking, as you would expect, is the best way to replace water. Drinking pure water is the best way to ensure that your body can do with your new hydration what it likes as well. If you drink something - fruit juice, soda, alcohol - that contains some flavoring or other components other than the basic water, those components have to be digested and used like anything else. Your body actually measures its necessity for nutrients and food based upon the balance that exists between various essential minerals and electrolytes and water. If you have too much water, your body will simply tell you to go to the rest room. If you have too little, you will feel thirsty. Oddly enough, though, over time our sensory perception of thirsty has become muddled a little bit. Sometimes the sensation of thirst can be confused with the sensation of hunger so instead of drinking something, we eat something - forcing our body to use water to digest - making us more thirsty. It is sort of a goofy conundrum.
In order to digest just about anything your body combines the food with water and flushes it out of your system. If you drink a soda which is loaded with water, sugar (even fake sugar) and caffeine, you’ll actually have to release the water in order to digest the other substances. The same is true for fruit juice, although some of the substances found in fruit juice are helpful in their own right. Alcohol actually goes beyond the regular combining process for digestion and attracts extra water, forcing your body to release even more of it’s hydration that it typically might. It is, therefore, important that we drink pure water frequently - several times a day. This is not to say that we shouldn’t indulge in juice, soda or even alcohol, but you aren’t helping your body as much as you can if these are the only substances you are willing to drink.
So how much water do we need? Basic health information dictates that we should drink eight, eight ounce glasses of water a day at minimum. An eight ounce glass of water is only the volume of one cup so it’s not that hard to get this amount of water into yourself at one sitting. If you are active, you are probably creating sweat and increasing your breathing meaning you need to replace more water. If you are consistently active, look to taking in 12 to 15 eight ounce glasses of water per day. Carrying a water bottle around with you and taking frequent sips or gulps is a great way to constantly hydrate yourself. Most individual size water bottles contain between 12 and 16 ounces. If you manage to drink the water contents of that bottle five or six times in a day, you’ve got plenty of water in your system (remember that you will take in water from other sources as well).
You can actually tell if you are drinking enough water each time you go to the rest room. If your urine is clear, it means that your body is releasing more water than other nutrients and, therefore, has plenty of water to keep itself going. If, however, your urine is a dark shade of yellow, your body is actually releasing nutrients in an effort to hold onto water in your system. These nutrients could have been used if you had enough hydration to handle them, but your body needs to conserve water so do it a favor - drink a glass or two. The exception to this indicator occurs if you take vitamins of some sort. Usually vitamins contain much more of a particular compound than your body needs at that moment so it will use what it can and release the rest, causing your urine to be a bright yellow. If you are taking a vitamin and drinking enough water, this yellow excretion should only happen once a day within a few hours of taking the vitamin.
Because your body operates on a balance of nutrients and water, we can assume that proper hydration is also a function of correct amounts of elements like sodium, potassium and other electrolytes in your system. This balance is the reason we now have sports drinks. The creators of these drinks recognized that a highly active person will lose significant amounts of nutrients along with water loss when they sweat and consume energy. Sports drinks contain elements like potassium, sodium, sugars and occasionally other vitamins and minerals which may aid the body in recovery of worn tissues and lost energy. The key to the purpose of these drinks, however, is for whom they were designed - highly active people. There is a lot of sugar in sports drinks. It is put there intentionally to replace lost energy as a highly active person is exerting work. These sugars are simple and quickly absorbed into the body and, if you are working very hard, quickly used as energy. If you are not a highly active person and if you are not engaging in extreme activity at the time you take a drink, there is no reason to need a sports drink.
Also, sports drinks are often very concentrated when bought off the shelf both to replenish nutrients lost from highly active athletes and for taste. Ultimately there is too much sugar in these drinks for the average person or even the average workout. I as a personal trainer who engages in very difficult workouts, wont consume a sports drink at its full concentration. Certainly the electrolytes in these drinks help during a workout so one way to get those nutrients and some of the energy necessary to complete your exercise is to cut the regular concentration of the drink with water. Pour out and save half of your regular sports drink, then refill the bottle with water. At this concentration you will have plenty of electrolyte replenishment for your workout without excess sugar.
Believe it or not, it is possible to drink too much water. This rare condition occurs when the body contains so much water relative to its accessible electrolytes that it literally shuts down because there ceases to be proper nutrient passage between cells. Hyper-hydration or the excess of water in balance to electrolytes is very dangerous and frequently fatal, however it is a condition which is very difficult to achieve. If you are a very long endurance athlete like a marathoner, distance triathlete, ironman/woman, or other extreme distance competitor you may need to consider hyper-hydration. Because your body releases electrolytes in sweat, if, during your extended activity (over the course of several hours) you only replenish yourself with water, you have a chance to create this imbalance. If you are in an organized even, the organizers are usually aware of this problem and will offer more than just water at check-stops. Now you’ll find sports drinks, energy bars, fruit, and even gummy bears to replenish the sugars in your body as well as the water. These other items can be helpful in maintaining the balance in your system. Another way to induce hyper-hydration is simply to drink too much water at one time without allowing your body to release it. You’d have to drink water at a magnitude of several gallons in an hour to achieve this level of imbalance. No one is ever that thirsty, and you stomach would be painfully full before you manage to drink too much. A radio contestant once managed to drink so much water as to induce hyper-hydration, but this was a contest and essentially no one does this on their own.
So even with water - as anything - going overboard can be detrimental to your body. Fortunately water is one of the main driving forces of life as we know it so too much water is a condition very difficult to achieve. Too little water, however, is frequently a problem afflicting many people in regular life. You need to make sure your body is getting plenty of pure water every day - to keep you systems running properly, for nutrition, and even to ward off infection. Just remember, at least 8, 8 ounce glasses per day and more than that if you are going to do anything active. Make sure that your body remains “mostly water”.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
Is Stretching Necessary?
The simple answer to the question, “is stretching necessary?”, is no. Stretching is not a completely imperative part of physical health. It is, however, extremely beneficial to stretch and maintain flexibility.
Your body is very good at adapting to the various stresses you put on it every day. Whether those stresses require mild exertion like sitting at a desk or great exertion like playing professional sports, your body will adapt to that particular activity in more ways than you might expect ... and in some ways you wish it wouldn’t. Sitting at a desk all day forces parts of your body like your back and your hips to be in a state of constant stress due to the weight of gravity on your body. Over time (maybe a few years) your body will adjust its structure to better suit the stresses of sitting at a desk. Unfortunately, the rigors of sitting at a desk don’t translate well to the rigors of walking or other exercise and, therefore, this new structure your body is creating is causing other activities to become more difficult.
A professional athlete is similarly afflicted with a body that gets very good at one or a series of movements. Because these movements are repeated over and over, the athlete’s body adjusts for those movements and doesn’t account for others not associated with the sport. Look at a tennis player’s arms for instance. The arm they use to swing the racket is going to be much more defined and often larger than the one that doesn’t do the swinging. This sort of imbalance is not going to affect the tennis player that much because they never really need that secondary arm for their daily activity. In contrast, if your body is adjusted to sit at a desk, it may be much less comfortable standing upright - a position which is certainly necessary for every person.
Maintaining flexibility is one way to counteract the affects of your body’s adjustment to your common activities. If your tissues remain flexible, your body will at least have the ability to achieve a task you don’t require of it very often. If you sit at a desk frequently, but enjoy playing golf once in a while for example, the two activities don’t work well together. Stretching and flexibility are imperative for golf even though your body is trying to deny you those traits by adjusting to sitting in a chair.
Essentially stretching helps your body maintain what is called a normal range of motion or ROM relative to your bone and muscle structure. Certainly some people are genetically more flexible than others, but this does not mean that they should not or need not stretch. In terms of health and balance, we can’t easily compare our body to someone else's because they have different genetics and may engage in different activities than we do. The best way to determine our relative flexibility is to compare alternate sides of your own body. If your right leg stretches more easily than the left, we need to spend more time stretching the left. If you can bend your body to the left more easily than the right, you need to work on bending to the right. Keeping your body in a balance of flexibility helps maintain a proper ROM for the activities you plan on pursuing.
Recently, it was also discovered that static stretching after a strength workout actually increases strength gains by as much as 5%. So even if your goal is to have the appearance of large, solid muscles, keeping them flexible will help in your pursuit.
There are three basic types of stretching: static, dynamic, and ballistic. Static stretching is the classic method of lengthening a muscle or group of muscles and holding that position for a period of time. Touching your toes, splits, and hurdler stretches are common versions of static stretching. The static stretch is the one which is most effective at the end of a strength workout. A static stretch should be held for at least 30 seconds to maintain current flexibility and longer if you wish to increase your flexibility. Holding a static stretch for only a few seconds may actually be detrimental to your ROM if you don’t return to that static stretch again several times in succession. Another method for static stretch, therefore, is to hold a position for 5-10 seconds, relieving that position and then repeating the stretch for several bouts of 5-10 seconds each.
Dynamic stretching is the most natural stretch and is the reason that a tennis player’s dominant arm, while larger than the secondary, is often more flexible and has a greater ROM. Dynamic stretch is the result of repeatedly exceeding the traditional range of a muscle structure and then exerting force with that same structure. A good example of a dynamic stretch would be a dancer or martial artist swinging their leg forward and back to the limits of their muscle range many times in a row (about 30 or more). Similarly, swimmers dynamically stretch their shoulders each time they take a stroke. Unless you are well familiar with the function of the human body, it is difficult to create your own dynamic stretches, but there are several publications out on the subject if you want to incorporate this type of stretching into your workout. Dynamic stretching is also an excellent alternative to the traditional warm up for most activity.
Ballistic stretching is very similar to dynamic stretching and often looks the same but the effects are nothing alike. Ballistic stretching involves actively exceeding the natural ROM of a particular body part like dynamic stretching, but it does not include a full contraction of the same muscle group to return to the original un-stretched position. Ballistic stretching is traditionally known as “bouncing” in an otherwise static position. This sort of technique can actually serve to restrict, not enhance the ROM of a structure and often fatigues essential mechanisms in your muscles and tendons which are designed to protect your body from dislocated joints. Regular ballistic stretching practice will often contribute to future injury and may even be the cause of injury. Ballistic stretching is an unnecessary practice and should be avoided.
Whatever type of stretching you engage in, you should incorporate it into your regular exercise routines frequently if not every day. Maintaining ROM not only ensures that your body will be capable of doing tasks other than those you regularly engage in, but also helps keep your tissues young and flexible - helping to stave off afflictions like arthritis and bone growths. Although there is no data showing that stretching is exclusively necessary for health, with all of the ways it does help to improve your body, there is little reason to exclude a good stretch.
Your body is very good at adapting to the various stresses you put on it every day. Whether those stresses require mild exertion like sitting at a desk or great exertion like playing professional sports, your body will adapt to that particular activity in more ways than you might expect ... and in some ways you wish it wouldn’t. Sitting at a desk all day forces parts of your body like your back and your hips to be in a state of constant stress due to the weight of gravity on your body. Over time (maybe a few years) your body will adjust its structure to better suit the stresses of sitting at a desk. Unfortunately, the rigors of sitting at a desk don’t translate well to the rigors of walking or other exercise and, therefore, this new structure your body is creating is causing other activities to become more difficult.
A professional athlete is similarly afflicted with a body that gets very good at one or a series of movements. Because these movements are repeated over and over, the athlete’s body adjusts for those movements and doesn’t account for others not associated with the sport. Look at a tennis player’s arms for instance. The arm they use to swing the racket is going to be much more defined and often larger than the one that doesn’t do the swinging. This sort of imbalance is not going to affect the tennis player that much because they never really need that secondary arm for their daily activity. In contrast, if your body is adjusted to sit at a desk, it may be much less comfortable standing upright - a position which is certainly necessary for every person.
Maintaining flexibility is one way to counteract the affects of your body’s adjustment to your common activities. If your tissues remain flexible, your body will at least have the ability to achieve a task you don’t require of it very often. If you sit at a desk frequently, but enjoy playing golf once in a while for example, the two activities don’t work well together. Stretching and flexibility are imperative for golf even though your body is trying to deny you those traits by adjusting to sitting in a chair.
Essentially stretching helps your body maintain what is called a normal range of motion or ROM relative to your bone and muscle structure. Certainly some people are genetically more flexible than others, but this does not mean that they should not or need not stretch. In terms of health and balance, we can’t easily compare our body to someone else's because they have different genetics and may engage in different activities than we do. The best way to determine our relative flexibility is to compare alternate sides of your own body. If your right leg stretches more easily than the left, we need to spend more time stretching the left. If you can bend your body to the left more easily than the right, you need to work on bending to the right. Keeping your body in a balance of flexibility helps maintain a proper ROM for the activities you plan on pursuing.
Recently, it was also discovered that static stretching after a strength workout actually increases strength gains by as much as 5%. So even if your goal is to have the appearance of large, solid muscles, keeping them flexible will help in your pursuit.
There are three basic types of stretching: static, dynamic, and ballistic. Static stretching is the classic method of lengthening a muscle or group of muscles and holding that position for a period of time. Touching your toes, splits, and hurdler stretches are common versions of static stretching. The static stretch is the one which is most effective at the end of a strength workout. A static stretch should be held for at least 30 seconds to maintain current flexibility and longer if you wish to increase your flexibility. Holding a static stretch for only a few seconds may actually be detrimental to your ROM if you don’t return to that static stretch again several times in succession. Another method for static stretch, therefore, is to hold a position for 5-10 seconds, relieving that position and then repeating the stretch for several bouts of 5-10 seconds each.
Dynamic stretching is the most natural stretch and is the reason that a tennis player’s dominant arm, while larger than the secondary, is often more flexible and has a greater ROM. Dynamic stretch is the result of repeatedly exceeding the traditional range of a muscle structure and then exerting force with that same structure. A good example of a dynamic stretch would be a dancer or martial artist swinging their leg forward and back to the limits of their muscle range many times in a row (about 30 or more). Similarly, swimmers dynamically stretch their shoulders each time they take a stroke. Unless you are well familiar with the function of the human body, it is difficult to create your own dynamic stretches, but there are several publications out on the subject if you want to incorporate this type of stretching into your workout. Dynamic stretching is also an excellent alternative to the traditional warm up for most activity.
Ballistic stretching is very similar to dynamic stretching and often looks the same but the effects are nothing alike. Ballistic stretching involves actively exceeding the natural ROM of a particular body part like dynamic stretching, but it does not include a full contraction of the same muscle group to return to the original un-stretched position. Ballistic stretching is traditionally known as “bouncing” in an otherwise static position. This sort of technique can actually serve to restrict, not enhance the ROM of a structure and often fatigues essential mechanisms in your muscles and tendons which are designed to protect your body from dislocated joints. Regular ballistic stretching practice will often contribute to future injury and may even be the cause of injury. Ballistic stretching is an unnecessary practice and should be avoided.
Whatever type of stretching you engage in, you should incorporate it into your regular exercise routines frequently if not every day. Maintaining ROM not only ensures that your body will be capable of doing tasks other than those you regularly engage in, but also helps keep your tissues young and flexible - helping to stave off afflictions like arthritis and bone growths. Although there is no data showing that stretching is exclusively necessary for health, with all of the ways it does help to improve your body, there is little reason to exclude a good stretch.
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