You may be aware that in order to maintain a healthy lifestyle you have to necessarily do a very good amount of exercise, including those exercise forms that will strengthen your heart and lungs. You might have seen people engaging in a brisk walking in a park or doing a strenuous aerobic exercise in a gym to control body weight and to stay fit.
The fact of such cardiovascular fitness exercises improving your blood circulation and heart s function are well known, but the other fact of your body needing stretching requirement after any hard workouts is not known at all. If you are actively engaged in workouts, then you cannot afford to ignore to do the necessary active stretching part in order to reap the real benefits of the workouts and other exercises.
Practice Active Stretching with Safety in Mind
You may be highly interested to learn more about active stretching that has to be practiced after the workout, but you at the first instance should understand the safety requirements so as to get the stress relieved out of your muscles efficiently. In any active stretching, correct techniques and good posture play a very vital role and only with such correct postures will you be able to attain stress relief.
Before you could start your active stretching part, you need to warm up your body and to achieve this you can either undertake walking or even finish your common household chores. You should also bear in mind that beginning a workout routine by stretching is not normally recommended, as your muscles will not be in a conducive condition and once forced you may end up injuring them.
In order to loosen up your muscles you can undertake moderately brisk walk either on a treadmill or in your garden for ten minutes and this will be enough for your muscles to get slackened and be ready for active stretching. When it comes the conducive time for active stretching, your post cardiovascular workout and weight-training time is the best and you can choose this time for reaping better results out of your active stretching.
Various Types of Stretches that Result in Enhanced Flexibility
Now you might have kindled your interest up and be ready to know more about the various types of active stretching and more details about every type. To start with, you know that running, be it on a treadmill or on a track, is certainly the best cardiovascular exercise, and once you complete with your above workout, you need to do the active stretching part so as to make your exercise part complete.
Once you are done with your running, you need to stretch your legs, hips and ankles and if you like you can even refer it as “runner s stretch”. This is actually done by bending one of the knees in front of your body while you stretch your other leg behind and straight. Hold your hands on either sides of the ground to support and holding up your body and in this stretching part your hamstrings and your hip muscles get stretched beneficially. In order to stretch your muscles on your inner thighs and hips, you can sit with your heels placed together on the floor and at the same time your knees falling outside and lean forward in a gentle fashion and bring your forehead towards your feet breathing deeply all the time.
Many doctors and physical trainers suggest active stretching as an effective tool for relaxing and to increase flexibility of your muscles and tendons. You can also utilize active stretching to prevent any of your frequent sport s injuries and you can tread your path of life in a healthy and peaceful manner.
[tags]Relaxation, Flexibility, Isometric Stretching[/tags]