The Body Blog: Get Your Stretch On

By Lauren

We are busy girls; there is no doubt about it. We’ve got class, and study groups, and student groups and work, and somewhere between all of that, we need to work out. And we need to get the most out of that limited time we have.

So we run to the gym, hop on the treadmill for 45 minutes, pack our things and move onto the next item on our daily agenda: the shower. We don’t have time to waste on stretching – we’ve got beer and pizza calories to burn, baby. Stretching is just an extra little thing, anyway; it’s not that important.

That’s what I used to think, but it turns out that stretching can be the most important part of a workout. Well, if you don’t want to mess up your body and do want to see more obvious results.

Stretching improves our flexibility, which is important for far more than just a few extra tricks in the bedroom. According to Body and Mind, stretching:

• Improves muscle balance around a joint, thus improving posture.
• Reduces the chance of injury when playing a sport or in every day activities.
• Increases the blood and nutrient supply to muscles and cartilage, thereby also reducing muscle soreness after training.

Every workout should end with a stretching session. For tips on how to stretch, click here. Doing stretches incorrectly will do more harm than good!

For ideas on new types of stretches to incorporate into your routine, click here.

Working out is important, but don’t forget to take care of your body in the process. And stretching is a great reward at the end of a difficult workout; why wouldn’t you want to do it!?