The ultimate range of movement in a joint or series of joints, which is achievable in less effort with the help of assistance or any other equipment, is termed as flexibility. For some joints, flexibility can be improved to a specific degree by stretching them.
Earlier, flexibility has been a disregarded or undervalued by health care professionals. Value of life can be improved by maintaining and enhancing a good range of movement in the joints. On the whole, flexibility can be developed with a particular joint range movement requires in mind, as the individual joints vary from each others. Genetics, gender, and age are essential for the range of movements. Lots of factors are considered while establishing “personal flexibility” such as tendons, skin, and body temperature, joint structure, ligaments, muscles, skin, tissue injury, tissue, fat, age and gender everything manipulates an individual’s range of movements on a joint.
Another definition of “flexibility “is the ability of joints to move easily through a normal or full range of movement. Features that influence flexibility include the joint formation, connective tissue flexibility inside the muscles, tendons or skin around the joint, body structure, age, hereditary, motion level and gender.
Flexibility Benefits
- Excellent freedom to move your body
- Improve physical strength and efficiency
- Improve body stability and harmonization
- Reduce the risk of back pain
- Reduce stress and improve relaxation
- Reduce the risk of injuries
- Cut down the recovery time
If you want to have a flexible body then just follow the following instructions
Instructions:
There are different ways through which you can increase your flexibility including:
- Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF)
- Forced Relaxation
- Static Stretching
- Isometric Stretching
- Yoga
- Strength Training
- Ballistic stretching (bouncing up and down and should only be used by certain athletes)
- The most convenient way to improve your flexibility is to get stronger. According to “Pavel Tsatsouline”, author of “Relax into Stretch”, “usually stronger muscles do not need to contract as rigid as weaker muscles to apply the same quantity of pressure and it more freely relaxes into a stretch”.
- The least difficult way to improve flexibility is by “static stretching”. Static stretching needs you to stretch your muscles slowly and steadily through a complete range of movement and maintain it stretched out for 30-40 seconds. This is the most popular form of stretching.
- Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Faciliation (PNF) is the most efficient way to enhance your flexibility. It is also known as “contract-relax stretching”, PNF consist of stretching a muscle gradually and firmly, until you get to highest resistance without feeling pain. Maintain this stretch for10 seconds, after that contract the muscle, which you are stretching for a few seconds, after that release the contraction, and straight away take the stretch slightly further.
- While stretching muscles, the stretch impulse instant contracts to protect the muscle from injuries. The “contract-relax action” of PNF restrains this stretch impulse and permit you to stretch more than you could if you use some other technique.
- If you doing PNF, incorporate reciprocal reserve by contracting the opposing muscle then captivating the stretch even more. For example if you want to improve “hamstring flexibility”, then check out the PNF series. After you have finished, it contract the quads and stretch it even more.
- The best time to perform stretch, after warming up you body by doing 20to 30 minutes of cardio or slight weight lifting, between “strength training” sets. You can also do it after doing workout. If you stretch before warming up, that could lead to severe injuries.
- Most health care professional advice not to stretch when you injured, but according to “Pavel” “When a muscle is injured, it withdraw into “spasms”, degenerate due to limited blood supply, and loses flexibility.
If a muscle spends a lot of time in a “shortened position”, the stretch impulse becomes very sensitive forming a shorter muscle length and extreme tonus. If there is a week or tight muscles, there are chances that it might get hurt.