Fitness Fun Fridays #12

Thanks for all the great recommendations everyone. I have ideas now on posting about protein bars, gym etiquette (which is actually very important I think), weight lifting for teenagers, and much more. I now have ideas on top of ideas, so this is awesome. Sometimes maybe I forget just how much knowledge is crammed in this brain, so thanks for rattling it a bit :)

Anyways... today is something very important for health, and movement. In school they always liked to say "Movement is Life", so we're going to talk about something that is responsible for helping your move effectively. This is something that is kind of a pain in the butt to do, and it's not for the lazy, but it takes only about 5 minutes, maybe twice a day. This is stretching.

I know. It's uncomfortable, it's boring, it feels really, really weird, and you hate it. I'll be honest, it's not one of my favorite things to do either. I would much rather just lift weights in my cupcake t-shirt, do my cardio, and then peace out cubscout. But, I'd be doing my body a huge disservice. Here's why...

Our bodies are adaptable to stress, and by stress I mean certain conditions. For example, if you walk around without shoes alot, you'll get callouses. The same thing works for getting stronger, getting more fit... and getting more flexible. Muscles are lengthened and shortened due to postures that we do based on habit... and the more often you are in a certain posture, the more often a muscle will change to accommodate that. Confused? Let's take a look at sitting...

Take a seat... and look at your lower body. Your hips are bent, your knees are bent, and your feet may be on the ground. So in this posture (which Americans are in through most of the day), we have shortened muscles (hip flexors, hamstrings, lower back) and lengthened muscles (quads, glutes, abdominals). This is an important idea to grasp, because the more times you put a muscles in a shortened position, the more able it is to becomes 'tight'. Ever feel stiff when you first get up from a chair or bed? Your muscles changed to shape for that certain posture. Once you get up and move, it's not so bad, right? So, what's the common sense thing to do? Move. Our ability to move keeps us healthy. Stretch out the tight muscles.

Stretching is a great thing to do once your muscles are already warmed up, due to increased blood flow to the area, and thus being more elastic in nature. Try doing these stretches for at least 20 seconds, and up to about 30 seconds, twice on each side of your body.

Here's some that EVERYONE can adapt to their routine... taken from this great slide show
I would personally do all of these stretches, but if you can't due to time constraints or whatever, make sure you stretch... remember 2 sets each side, 30 second hold. Why 30 seconds? Well your muscles have stretch receptors in them, and they need to hold a position for at least 15 seconds to relax themselves and the receptors. It's like a game of tug o' war... and you have to let your muscle say "ok I give, dude". So a quick 10 second hold is too short. So, anyways... at least stretch your:
Hip Flexors, Hamstrings, Lower Back and Calves

I stress these muscle groups the most, because they are what I commonly see as tight on people... Here's a quick story, real quik... a story about Mr. Backpain

Mr. B hurt his back by picking up a newspaper in the morning. He bent over, and with a grunt, noticed something didn't feel right. He felt a sharp pain that felt like he "pulled a muscle" on his way back up from bending over. He's done this everyday for like 20 years... so what gives?

Well, it could be a number of things, but if Mr. B has pulled his back out, and it's nothing too serious, it could be due to his hips. Whoa, whoa... his hips? Yup.

Well if you have a tight muscle, and muscles cross joints... you then have joints that aren't moving too easily, right? So your body is going to do the next best thing it can do... move a different joint, a little more. It's like the lazy kid in class, and the straight A student doing a class project together (any straight Aer's here?) Donald the Dork doesn't want to fail, so he has to make up the work that Lazy Larry has to do so they can pass.

So what I'm stressing is that if you have inflexibility somewhere, another joint and muscle may have to move more to compensate... and that's how injuries can happen. What do you think of that? Kinda cool. So um... stretching is good for you because it balances you out. Oh here's a cool stat for the statistic heads out there... 57% of your flexibility is due to genetics, and 43% is due to daily activities. Ever wonder why some people are just more flexible? Well they have different genes than you :)

Alright that's about enough for today, because I've rambled on a little now. I even went a little chiropractic on everyone. That's what happens when you have one of the coolest jobs ever. I mean it's close to professional ice cream tester... or blog reader, or cartoonist.
Quik
moving