Stretching is one of the most common physical exercises involving your complete body and muscles. It helps achieve comfortable muscle tone and flexibility in your body.
Stretching also helps you release tension from your body, muscles, joints, ligaments, and tendons. Thus, for a full-body workout session, many people prefer stretching.
Stretching can also have multiple forms. Depending upon the type of exercises and strength involved, it can be classified.
Here are some of the broad categories of stretching.
Active Stretching
Active stretching involves engaging the targeted muscles at all times during the stretch. It utilizes all the muscles engaged in an active stretching pose. It aims at improving your flexibility and the entire body.
Many athletes engage in active stretching for enhancing flexibility and strength.
It involves holding the stretch during the active stretching exercises. The stretches are for 10-15 seconds. Holding the stretch position for more than 10-15 seconds will be difficult.
Active stretching has the following benefits:
- Less tightening on muscles
- Increases blood flow to the muscles
- You can have a personalized approach to it
- It reduces tensions in your muscles
Passive Stretching
Passive stretching is known for maintaining balance in your body. It also adds to the flexibility of your body. You hold a pose for a couple of minutes with the help of your hand for gaining balance and flexibility.
Your stay in a position for a set period. The force is on the outer muscles of your body.
Using a prop can be helpful for more pressure during the stretch exercise. It is a more comfortable form of stretching for daily stretch workouts. You feel better after doing passive stretching exercises every day.
Passive stretching has the following benefits:
- Improves flexibility
- Enhances mobility
- It improves performance and reduces risks
- It enhances the range of motions
Dynamic Stretching
Dynamic stretches involve exercise in full motion. Your complete body is engaged in exercises through repeated movements. It involves active movements frequently.
It is one of the best stretch exercises for warming up your body before intense workout sessions. It may involve mimicking exercising before performing actual exercises.
You can inculcate dynamic stretching before indulging in heavy workout sessions, before weightlifting, and before cardiovascular exercises.
Dynamic stretching has the following benefits:
- Warms up your muscles before workout sessions
- Increases the nerve activities
- Decreases the risk of injuries while working out
- Enhances your performance in physical activities and sports
Conclusion
Stretching is always a preferred exercise for warmup and during a high-intensity workout. It depends on your personal choice when to do stretching exercises.
Stretching can be of different types. It may be dynamic stretching, active stretching, and partial stretching. It's upon you to choose the type of stretching you have to do for your workouts.
Thus, we hope the blog post provided you with knowledge about the stretching and types of stretching. Let us know in the comments below your favorite form of stretching.
DISCLAIMER: SmallFitnessThings do not provide any kind of medical advice, treatment, or diagnosis. All the content is for informational purposes only. You should not consider the information as a piece of medical advice. Consult with your healthcare professional for deciding your course of action.
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