Don't over stretch your body

Stretching to most people is a no-brainer but truth be told we should

take stretching MUCH more seriously.

To say that we "lengthen" a muscle isn't really all that true. When we

exercise we shorten or contract a muscle, and when we stretch we are

trying to bring the muscle back to the pre-exercise state or better

yet, provide range of motion to a particular muscle.

Many people believe that stretching "expands"our muscle. Our muscle

can only be lengthened so much. If we try to go beyond the point the

our body's capability, we will cause some serious damage.

Flexibility often indicates extreme ranges of motion, but is this what we

are trying to achieve? There are many things surrounding our muscles

that we want to be aware of:

Joints

Ligaments

Fascia

Case the case of a Gymnast. There is a saying in the Asian culture that

young gymnast are like throwing 100 eggs against a wall. The one

that doesn't break is going to be a champion.

That is very disturbing but if you look at what gymnasts go through

to get extreme ranges of motion beyond what there body is meant to

do we will understand why these athletes get hip and knee replacements

in their thirties.

So the next time your stretching think about what you are doing...

When you are feeling "tightness" in a muscle, it is your body telling you

there is something that it is protecting. Be aware of how much force you

are applying to your stretching sessions, there is a limitation for a reason.