Since we offer mobility stretching at Recovery Lab of La Verne, we thought we’d discuss this topic, including why our mobility stretching is even better for athletes than regular stretching is.
Why Is Stretching Important?
For those just getting started in their athletic journey, you might not know yet why stretching is so vital.
The main reason is because it helps prevent injuries. Stretching makes everything looser and should give you a greater range of motion. Since tight muscles are much more likely to get pulls and tears in them, this reduces the chance of either of these types of injuries happening.
Why Stretching Benefits Athletes Specifically
All athletes, especially ones at the top of their fields, know how vital it is to keep up their training. Every day they aren’t working out is a day they are starting to fall behind.
Therefore, getting injured, even if it’s a relatively minor sprain or strain, is something to be avoided if at all possible, which is something stretching helps prevent.
The added range of motion is also beneficial, as it boosts your athletic ability!
When Athletes Should Do Their Stretching
Surprisingly, it’s not always best to stretch first!
In fact, you will get more from your stretching if, rather than using your stretching as your warmup, you first do some warmup by doing some fast walking or something fairly easy.
The reason for this is simple: the warmup both gets your blood pumping and makes your muscles warmer, which helps their range and movement. Now, stretching helps your range and movement too, but you’ll actually get an even wider range of motion if your muscles are already warmed up when you start stretching them.
Additionally, stretching after you do something like running is equally important. This will keep the blood flowing to your muscles for longer, helping them recover faster.
Why Our Mobility Stretching Is Better
Mobility stretching quite literally goes deeper into your muscles.
As important as stretching is, it’s essential to stretch more than just your muscles and tendons. You want to get to your fascia, the name of the connective tissue between your muscles, and make sure this is flexible as well.
This is what mobility stretching does! Our recovery specialist will be helping you into positions you probably wouldn’t be able to get into by yourself and will assist you in staying in these positions while you stretch.
Mobility stretching also focuses much more on movement than on holding static poses, making it much more efficient at increasing your practical mobility.
