A good stretch routine can help you overcome not just all of the above, but it can also help you heal faster and maintain an overall healthier state of health. A regular stretching routine also reduces your chances of injury by training the muscles to their best limit. And a gentle stretch session before bed induces better sleep and relaxes muscles so you wake up all fresh and easy.
How Do You Start a Stretching Routine?
Once you know that regular stretching comes with tons of benefits, the question is how to start, whether you should be doing dynamic or static stretching, how often should you be doing it, and what to do exactly. Static stretching has more to do with opening the body. In this type of stretching, you perform passive stretches and hold them for a longer period, varying from 45 seconds to even 3 minutes in some cases. Dynamic stretching can be done without any warm-up as it serves as a stretch and warm-up together itself. The stretches are held for a much shorter duration in seconds and repetition is the key. Both have their own pros—and cons only if done wrong. However, for all practical purposes, dynamic stretching is a good option to do daily. A frequency of every other day is good enough too in case you are into other workouts or Yoga. We shall go through a dynamic stretching routine here that you can do any time of the day with all the benefits as mentioned before in this article. This stretching routine takes care of all major muscle groups and gets you going easy on every part of your body. Let us get into it.
1. Dynamic Palm Stretch
Stand with your feet together, arms by the side of the body, and palms facing the thighs. Look forward.
2. Dynamic Right Angle Stretch
3. Dynamic Lateral Arc Stretch
4. Rotation of the Waist
5. Quad Stretch
6. Dynamic Squats
7. Tiger Stretch
8. Dynamic Cobra Stretch
Lie down on your stomach on a mat with feet apart at hip distance. Place the forehead on the mat and palms below the shoulders facing down, elbows turned inwards towards the body. As you inhale with a firm grip on the mat, lift your torso and turn back from the right to look towards your left heel. While you are up, turn left and look towards your right heel. Exhale and bring your forehead back on the mat with control. Again, inhale come up, look towards your right, then left, and exhale, come down. Repeat five times.
9. Mill Churning Stretch
10. Butterfly Stretch With Forward-Fold
Stretch Your Health Forward
Now that you know all the amazing benefits that come with just a short 15-minute stretching routine, don’t wait up. Get up and try this stretching routine right now as you don’t need to warm up before this. I wish you all the best in taking your health several steps ahead, and keep stretching!
More Stretching Routines You Can Try
17 Morning Stretches That Will Jumpstart Your Body and Mind 15 Static Stretching Exercises to Totally Enhance Your Workout Routine 15 Simple And Quick Office Stretches To Boost Work Efficiency
Featured photo credit: Dane Wetton via unsplash.com
