I’m sure that everyone knows that it is important to properly prepare your body before doing any strenuous exercise. By stretching your muscles, you can help avoid serious injuries that are not only painful, but can also impede your performance meaning it takes much longer for you to lose weight.

It is best to fully stretch both before and after you begin walking on your treadmill. By stretching before your exercise you will help to warm your muscles allowing yourself extra flexibility, and by stretching afterwards you will help to prevent your muscles stiffening up.

Here are some excellent ways to ensure that your muscles are not injured while using your treadmill:

1. Never stretch until it hurts! The majority of people think that there’s ‘no gain without pain’. This is never the case - you should only ever stretch to a position that is comfortable for you, and then hold this position for about 20 seconds.

2. When stretching you should always breathe - some people believe that holding their breathe will help, but this is not the case. By actually doing some deep breathing exercises you will be able to give your muscles a much more thorough stretch.

3. Stretching is often seen as the warm up phase of exercise, but it’s really important to warm your muscles before you stretch them, so it’s a great idea to walk around or jog on the spot for a few minutes before you start to stretch.

4. When you have completed your work out take a nice warm bath or shower. The hot water will help to gently relax your muscles. By stretching after your bath or shower you will help to stop your muscles seizing up, as well as feeling wonderful!

5. You may have seen professional athletes bouncing while they stretch, but you should never ever do this! Bouncing during stretching exercises can actually cause serious injuries to your muscles rather than prevent injuries.

A lot of people assume that a treadmill will only exercise the leg muscles when in fact it delivers a full body workout. While it is important to stretch your calf muscles, quadriceps, and hamstrings it is also extremely important to stretch muscles in other areas as well such as the shoulders, neck, back and abs.

Don’t just bend over and hang, trying to touch your toes. Add some additional stretches, such as the splits, lunges, and calf stretches where you stand on the edge of a step or curb and drop your heels to the point right before it becomes uncomfortable.

When stretching you should always make sure your movements and slow and deliberate - it actually helps to keep some tension in the muscles to get the most out of your stretch. And remember, you should never stretch to the point where it becomes painful.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, October 9th, 2008 at 2:12 am and is filed under Exercise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.