ant to learn how to increase flexibility?Discover the best stretches to improve flexibility with your 4-Step Mr Fantastic guide!
Stretches to Improve Flexibility
What was your favourite comic-book as a kid? When I was a boy growing up in the 70s, The Fabulous Fantastic Four was the must-have read. With every issue promising a roller-coaster adventure, its home delivery became an eagerly anticipated treat.
A popular character at the time was Mr Fantastic. As patriarch of the Four, his superpowers included extreme flexibility - an ability which made the stretchy Reed Richards not only a formidable foe, but a whizz at yoga!
Fast forward to the present, and flexibility is more than a curious superpower - in the realm of good health, it is one of the best ways to get fit.
So how can flexibility help you?
Consider these flexibility benefits:
- Enhanced physical fitness
- Improved ability to learn and perform skilled movements
- Increased mental and physical relaxation
- Better body awareness
- Reduced injury risk to joints, muscles and tendons
- Reduced muscular tension and soreness
- Increased suppleness.
Sounds impressive? The following 4-Step guide promises to unleash your Mr Fantastic!
How to Increase Your Flexibility
1. Stretch safely. To unleash your Mr Fantastic, it's important you know how to increase flexibility safely...
And what is the safest way to increase your flexibility?
Stretch your body AFTER exercise.
Since any form of flexibility training exercises are potentially hazardous when performed on cold joints and muscles, it is imperative you stretch your body AFTER your warm-up or exercise.
Over-stretching a cold muscle risks possible injury - even for Mr Fantastic - so follow this tip and stretch safely.
2. Stretches to improve flexibility.
As children, stretching is a natural part of activity and play. And yet as we get older this ability is often lost to us.
Fortunately, this skill can soon be relearned. Moreover, stretches to improve flexibility can become an enjoyable AND beneficial addition to your fitness regimen - regardless of your age.
This means you can soon rediscover your youth, leading to enhanced physical well being.
3. How to stretch.
Learning how to stretch is easy. However, there is a right way and a wrong way to practice this skill.
The right way is a relaxed, sustained stretch, with your focus on the muscle being worked. The wrong way - sadly practiced by many - is to bounce up and down, or stretch to the point of pain.
Here is how to increase flexibility safely:
- The Easy Stretch
Spend 10-30 seconds in the easy stretch. An easy stretch is the point where you feel mild tension in the muscle - this feeling of tension should subside as you hold your position. (An easy stretch reduces muscular tightness and readies the tissues for the developmental stretch.)
- The Developmental Stretch
After the easy stretch, move slowly into the developmental stretch. Move a fraction of an inch further until you again feel a mild tension, and hold for 10-30 seconds. (The developmental stretch fine-tunes the muscles and increases flexibility.)
4. Strength train for suppleness.
Lifting weights doesn't only build muscle. In addition to any strength gains you might make, you will also increase your flexibility.
How does this happen?
Increases to your flexibility occur as you exercise your skeletal musculature, leading to overall improvements in your suppleness. This FANTASTIC how to increase flexibility benefit, means you enhance your suppleness as you build your body.
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In Summary
Want to learn how to increase flexibility?
Discover the best stretches to improve flexibility with your 4-Step Mr Fantastic guide!
How to Increase Flexibility to Muscle Building
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