Stretching

"I don't excercise. If God had wanted me to bend over, he would have put diamonds on the floor." - Joan Rivers

For Cub Scouts tonight I'll need to discuss stretching exercises. It's been ages since I've done any stretching (to my body's dismay) so I did some research. Here's what I found.

Year's ago my wife & I attended a fun class called the Way of the Peaceful Warrior by Dan Millman. He recommends A Complete Four-Minute Fitness Routine every morning to get one revved up for the day. One part I remember fondly is a full body shakedown with random wiggling to loosen joints and muscles.

The site Corporate Yoga has pictures of stretches you can do in your cubicle and at your computer.

Fairview Health has pictures of classic stretches for the major muscles. I have unusually tight calf muscles and should be doing the hamstring and calf stretch more often. Standing on my toes is no problem but pulling my toes up, or leg lifts, not so easy.

Bottom Line

When should you stretch? As a child I was taught to stretch or pull the muscles (like Fairview above) before exercising. Modern medicine says this can tear "cold" muscle and cause injury and worsen athletic performance. Instead perform dynamic warmup like Arm circles and Trunk rotations to "warm" up muscles and increase the blood flow and oxygenation. Exercise. Then do "static" pulling stretches afterwards to prevent cramping.

A SportsInjury site allows for cold stretching but start slow, NO BOUNCING, 30 seconds max per stretch, and build up gently to harder muscle pulls.

Resources

http://www.myfit.ca/exercisedatabase/stretches.asp?exercises=flexibility

http://www.sportsinjuryclinic.net/cybertherapist/stretching/allstretches.php

http://physicaltherapy.about.com/od/flexibilityexercises/Stretching_Exercises.htm

http://www.thestretchinghandbook.com/