Common Stretching Mistakes to Avoid

In today’s world of cut throat competition, often our schedules are jam packed. We can hardly make time for our family, let alone time for recreation and other such activities. However, you cannot ignore physical activity. All day long, we sit glued to our computer screens and find it seemingly hard to make some time for a healthy workout. Exercise is as much important for underweight or normal people as it is for overweight people. Not only exercising helps in maintaining weight but also has countless other benefits such as combating diseases, boosting energy, promoting sleep and improving sex life.

So you have finally decided to include exercise in your daily routine. In fact, most of you might be even following it. But what are some important things that you should keep in mind? Generally, people ignore pre-workout stretches in their exercise routine. Why are warm-up exercises important? What are the common mistakes which people make with respect to stretching? Let’s have a look:

Ignoring pre-workout stretches

Stretching before workout in addition to some warm up exercises such as cardio, running, jogging etc. before you go for a full-fledged workout is as important as exercising is. Generally, stretching is done to improve the flexibility of muscles. By improving flexibility, you are preparing your muscles for a great workout and hence less prone to injuries. Not only stretching matters, but the type of exercise you are going to do also has a great relevance. The stretches should ensure that you are stretching the muscles that are involved in the workout.

Rushing through stretching

Some people simply stretch just for the heck of it or just to convince themselves that they did some stretching exercises before workout. This is very wrong as the stretching otherwise won’t have the intended effect. Make sure that you do the stretches religiously and hold on to them until the count is complete. Remember, the timing of the stretches is also very important.

Overstretching: Steer clear from overstretching! It is normal to experience pain while you are stretching as it is all about stepping out of your comfort zone. However, you need to understand your body and simply not ignore the pain. It might be an alarm that you are over-doing it.

Ignoring breathing: While stretching, people generally forget to breathe the way they are supposed to while doing a particular movement. You have to follow a specific pattern of breathing in and out. Deep breathes aid in relaxation and releasing of tension. Hence this has to be kept in mind while stretching.

Stretching isolated muscles: You should also make sure that you aren’t stretching the wrong set of muscles such as your abs etc. You should not focus on a specific part rather you should be stretching your entire body. The best thing to do is to seek the advice of an expert or take the help of resources such as internet just to ensure that you are stretching right. What might seem correct to you might be wrong. Hence it is quite important to be in the right direction so that you are following a stretching routine that is fruitful.

Stretching wrong muscles: If you are stretching but don’t feel it then you might be doing the stretch wrong. You can simply touch the muscle which you are intending to stretch and you should feel it tight once you stretch it. This is one way to ensure that you are stretching right. Also make sure that you do not stretch an injured muscle. It might be quite damaging and cause a lot of discomfort. If the pain doesn’t subside, it is always a good idea to consult a physician. The whole idea is to relax and not to over exert or do it wrong.

Bouncing: This might not be very evident but bouncing after performing a stretch can create problems for you. Bouncing at the end of a stretch can tear the muscle and tendon. This is because our sole aim while stretching is to relax the muscles but doing this action can instead prevent the same. In fact it is recommended to hold the stretch for a few seconds say 10-15 and relax and the repeat certain sets of the same.

These are some of the probable mistakes which you should watch out for while stretching.