BY TEREN HANZ
A few years ago, having got fed up with the pain in my body, I decided to go for a massage. As the therapist massaged, I cried with pain. The therapist found that my muscles were tender and inflamed. He said, what I needed was not a massage but a regime of stretching.
Having a good-stretch can relieve you off tension, pain and tightness. The muscles must lengthen which doesn’t occur during a massage; stretching leads to more permanent changes in the body. Massages provide a temporary relief but stretching is much more of a corrective exercise. He decoded my body, spotted irregularities and gave me a million-dollar advice in a matter-of 30 minutes.
My dad used to compare stretching with ironing-out. He used to say – you wouldn’t wrap a present with paper that has cricks-and-crunches, would you? Stretching works wonders in ironing you out. It reminds me of my school days; my school embraced self-regulating skills. Everything requires discipline which takes time, hardwork, persistence and stamina. Believe it not, we had stretching in and outside classroom. In classroom, our teachers made us do stretching as a calming exercise and to have-a-break from seated learning. Boy! You could feel the blood-flow into your muscles, making you feel-good, helping to relieve stress trying to figure out an answer to a hard-question and ultimately leading to improvement in mood.
Then this self-regulation skill would spill outside the classroom, into the playground. My PE instructor compared stretching with a rubber-band. When you stretch a rubber-band, it usually returns to its normal size but if you pull it beyond the maximum it stays stretched-out. If you continuously stretch your muscles beyond their maximum range of motion, eventually they will not stay stretched out because our brain senses and puts muscles back into place. The sad thing is despite having knowledge, we take our body for granted and fail-to-follow advice imparted by cooked brains. All that I can now say is, if only, I did….
So, we know that stretching is not just a warm-up exercise, but it enhances mood and movement; improves flexibility, circulation, posture and relieves tension, pain and tightness and most importantly helps to lose weight better. I won’t go into anatomy-and-physiology of our body but briefly say: when you’re exercising/stretching, your body will produce lactic-acid which plays a role in creating more blood-flow to the muscles, ultimately you gain more strength and endurance next time you exercise. When you stop to catch your breath, your body will process and get rid of this lactic-acid. So, any form of exercise, stretching being better, will help to keep you from getting unwell.
The big-question being, how can you tell when you need to stretch? Tune into your body; listen to the tell-tale signs. Watch-out for: constantly feeling tired-and-sleepy, having recurring headaches, have tense muscles from bad posture, reduced mobility in joints-and-muscles; none of which need medical intervention but just a regular body stretch. Without regular-stretching, your body gets cold, and muscles tighten-up. Eventually, your muscles will pull on your joints and trigger significant pain-and-discomfort and then become ill.
For best results, only 60 seconds on each stretch; then hold for 15 seconds, repeating 2-3 times. Ensure that the body is warmed-up to maximize the effect. Warming up increases the amount of power a muscle can produce, making movements more efficient.
Simple beneficial stretches from the comfort of your own home: First, the most important morning-stretch relieves any tension or pain sleeping the night before; loosens and realigns the muscles. It helps circulation, getting your blood flowing after your heart spent the night moving a little slower than it does during your waking hours. During the day, just random stretching: move arms-and-legs, gradually increasing ‘speed & reach’ or both. Eg: controlled leg-swings, knee-lifts, arms or torso-twists, laying on your back, flexing arms-and-legs back and forth. Elephant Swing focuses on the muscles in arms, shoulders & lower back. Stand with legs apart and straight arms. Bring hands together at hip-height, keeping them straight. Bend forward at the waist, allowing arms to swing freely like the trunk of an elephant. Move shoulders from right-to-left to sway arms, gradually increase speed. Flamingo Perch: stand straight, balance on right-leg and slowly bend the left behind. Then grasp the left-leg with their left-arm, then gently pull, extending a stretch along the thigh. Repeat on the opposite side. I normally stand near a wall to help to balance.
When holding a stretch, take a deep-breath; as a result this increases oxygenated blood flow throughout the body and to your muscles. On each exhale, move-into-your stretch, hold-the-stretch every time you inhale. Try and increase the intensity of the stretch comfortably within your means. Don’t think of anything else but your breath & exercise & and keep your eyes closed. Bear a bit of pain; sore muscles just mean that you’re getting stronger. During exercise, you stress your muscles and fibres begin to breakdown. They repair themselves and become stronger than they were before.
Three important things:
The closer you are to your ideal weight, the better your body functions.
It’s important to get rid of bad-habits: having a classic slouchy position seated at desk, carrying a bag on the same-side, sitting cross-legged etc, otherwise muscles get tight and before you know it, you have discomfort.
It’s not just about ‘keep-moving’ but ‘moving-well’ holds key to maintaining health. Consider bending over to pick something up; you can move through your back or through your hips. Moving through the back is low-quality movement and moving through the hips, keeps the spine straight, is a high-quality movement. Low-quality movement leads to problems while high-quality maintains health, protects joints which keeps you more active for a longer time.
Strength requires good-alignment; good-alignment requires good-movement. Movement quality is the most overlooked part of general-fitness. Good movement is the foundation for fitness and strength. Good movement keeps the doctor away. The results can literally be life changing. It’s your body – own it and listen to it!