How to Be More Flexible
Do you want to achieve a flexible body? Well, flexibility is a crucial part of muscle strengthening and conditioning. Though it is an essential requirement for athletes and sportspersons to maintain their fitness, it is equally beneficial to all others who are health conscious.
Flexibility is important for maintaining good health and better physical fitness. However, it requires time and several exercises on regular basis. So, if you really want to be healthy and more flexible, follow a regime of daily exercise and healthy diet. The result will surprise you and you will simply love the surprise.
Important Specifics
1. Before you start any exercise, just warm up your muscles. You can use a treadmill, a skipping rope or any other tool that warms up your muscles and increases your heart beat. Try to keep your muscles and joints lubricated by warming up and cooling down.
2. Now you can begin your stretching exercise. Ensure that you stretch out slowly and gracefully. Work at a pace that is comfortable to you. You can gradually increase the pace (length of reach, length of time or both) as you progress with the exercise every day. Do not go for rigorous stretching at the beginning because that will put stress on your joints and muscles and may cause micro-tears of muscle fibers.
- Make sure that your movements are symmetrical. Do not forget to include positive as well as negative motions in your practice. If you stretch to our left, stretch out to your right too. Similarly when you make forward movements ensure you make backwards movements as well.
- Maintain a healthy diet. Include lot of green leafy vegetables in your diet and also increase the intake of water. Go for eatables that are rich in protein and calcium.
Every part of your body needs to be worked out, this is very essential for overall fitness. There are different exercises for different body muscles and joints.
Upper Body:
- Do arm rotations. Include forward and backward movements. Swing your arms or stretch it across your chest, holding it as far as possible. Try to repeat it in the opposite direction as well.
- Try neck circles and head turns to stretch the neck.
Lower Body:
- Stretch down and try to reach for your toes without bending the knees. Hold for a few seconds and then release. It is a static stretch and should be done number of times.
- Sit down and stretch out your legs. Cross one leg over the other such that one foot is around the other knee. Now turn your body in the opposite direction so that the elbow opposite to the crossed leg is on the outside of the crossed leg’s knee. This is a stretch exercise for hips.
- Stand with your legs apart and try to go for squatting position on one leg, keeping other leg straight. You can repeat this for both the legs. It stretches the groin.
- Try to go into a high split position. Squeeze the groin muscles for a few seconds and then allow it to relax. Slide a little farther and try to go as low as you can.
Tips
1. Do not forget to warm up before full stretch exercise and do not halt into a full stop without cooling down.
2. If you are a beginner and do not have much knowledge about the exercise, it is always better to take help of a supervisor.
Watch a video instruction on how to be more flexible
See also
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