Let yo booty do that yoga 🧘🧘 – Janelle Monae.

Ladies!!! Can we talk about stretching before and after exercise?

A lot of times, I get complaints about tight hamstrings, tight shoulders and even painful joints. While some of them are due to injuries, a good number are due to the lack of proper stretching during and after exercise.

It is important that as we embark or continue on our fitness journey, we also spend some time to regularly stretch our bodies. Stretching relieves the muscles, creates more flexibility and also burns calories at it’s own level and so, it is a win win 🙌🙌.

Another often overlooked reason is that it is necessary for us in this time because, we spend a good part of our day sitting down. What that does is that our muscles are being forced to contract and therefore, when we just go on to workout without stretching them, it is a disaster.

Another thing that stretching does is to create long and lean muscles, this why most yoga practitioners, have bodies that we all wish for. They are constantly stretching their muscles and making them more lean and flexible.

Looking for another bonus point? It increases blood flow and circulation around our body and vital organs.

The benefits are endless ladies and as a matter of fact, vital for us.

You can do your stretches when you wake up in the morning, before and after workout or during your day, with a few breaks in between.

Here are the more popular and safer types of stretches and their different purposes;

1) Static stretching is what typically comes to mind when talking about stretching. It is a form of active or passive stretching in which you hold a position for about 30-60 seconds, allowing the muscles and their connective tissues, fascia, to lengthen. This is the most commonly known style of stretching and has been seen as the status quo for years.

2) Dynamic stretching is a form of active stretching that is performed by engaging the desired muscle’s antagonist through the joint’s range of motion, only holding the stretch for 2-3 seconds. Because the stretch is only held briefly, the muscle is able to increase in length without a reduction in muscle tension or muscle excitability.

There you have it, those are the benefits of stretching and the kinds of stretching we have. You can literally stretch on your bed before you in leave it after about 8 hours of being without movement,it will warm your body up and get you ready to start the day.

Stretching before your exercise will open up the muscles you’ll be working on and stretching after, will ease the tension from them.

Yoga is actually the go to exercise for stretching and as such, I advice you to get it in after a week of intense workouts aside your regular stretches of course.

Share with me what your stretching routine was before now and how you plan to change it.