I have always wanted to blog abut stretching... a particular exercise which I find people tend to overlook, and do not pay much attention to the importance of Flexibility... Actually it is understandable... including myself, cos in my early days when I started working out and doing sports, I also didn't do stretching; or shall I put it this way, I find it boring and a waste of time, or I don't think I wanna fit in time to do stretching..... until I got my back sciatica pain....
Anyway, I will share more details about my back sciatica in later part... But let's just talk about stretching.... Most people will rather gym and carry heavy weights to build muscle and strength, or will go for a good run and cardio workout to improve their 2,4run (oops, now no more 2.4 for ippt) or race... All for the sake of either looking good with all the good muscles, or for the sake of sports performance... Naturally, stretching is not fixed in peoples' mind to be important since it doesn't help you to put muscle to look good..
Well, you'll be in for trouble just like my back sciatica... But seriously, stretching is equally important. All that hard intense workout that you put in effort in the gym will cause the muscles to shorten... and if you don't do something to lengthen it back, you'll be heading for trouble. And since muscle tissues are attached to our the joints, regular shortening and tension will cause it to pull and pull and pull on to the joints... until the worst thing that happens; your joints 'give way'! Yes!!! Just think of the common knee joint.... And let's say running for example... Constant pounding on the pavement and tracks lead to tightness in the surrounding muscles like calf, quads, hams, and commonly the IT band... and these muscles connect to the joint... the tightness when not relieved will pull on to the joint, and the next thing that will happen will be misalignment of the knee patella... and tada... why is there a nagging pain in my knee??? (** my next later blog will be about massage effects for tight muscles)
The next point; as we grow older, our flexibility ability will not be as good as young... you will find it hard to even do simple stuff like reaching forward to grab something... If you don't do any stretching to at least maintain your flexibility capability, you will definitely find it even harder to do such simple mundane task...
Not enough to convince you about stretching... my next blog will emphasize about back health and my sciatica experience, why stretching is important for back health... and a bit on massage effects on the muscles..
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