Terre Pruitt's Blog

In the realm of health, wellness, fitness, and the like, or whatever inspires me.

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Posts Tagged ‘static stretching’

Half Kneeling Inner Thigh Stretch

Posted by terrepruitt on July 19, 2023

If you have seen any stretching posts of mine, you know I love me some stretching. You know I think stretching is very important and very beneficial. Here is another stretch for you.

Here are quick instructions:

-Kneel on the floor and take one leg out. Knee pointing away from the body to the side. If you were to hold your arm out to the side the thigh would be in alignment with the knee and toes point out in the same direction.

-You can use your arm to push the knee/thigh back a bit.

-I may be stating the obvious, but normally you would do one side after the other. 🙂

That’s it.

This is an inner thigh stretch. It stretches your adductor muscles.

As with many stretches and exercises there are many ways to stretch/exercise a muscle/set of muscles. This is just one.

I teach a stretch class so, of course, I would love you to join, but I also really believe that stretching is so very important so I just want to post some stretches so you can do them on your own and experience the benefit of stretching.

Do you stretch?

Posted in stretching | Tagged: , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Stretching BEFORE Workout

Posted by terrepruitt on June 10, 2010

When I was young the thing to do, what we were taught to do, before exercise was to stretch.  Static stretching, moving into a position that stretches the muscle, then hold it for about 30 seconds.  The idea was to stretch every muscle in the body, from the top to the bottom or the bottom to the top.  This was considered a proper warm-up.  This was the correct way to get our bodies ready for exercise.  This we were told would prevent injury. Research and knowledge has changed that.

With advances in exercise technology and body knowledge, it is now a popular belief that this type of stretching, static stretching could actual harm the muscles or in the very least keep them from operating at their peak.  Some researchers believe that stretching before exercise actually causes the muscle to contract and tire, therefore not perform as efficiently.

A study done by the University of Nevada found that athlete’s muscle strength was decreased by as much as 30%.  If a muscles strength is decreased you are either going to be able to do less or injure yourself trying to do more than you muscle is able to do at the time.

So many of us have been taught to warm up this way for so long it is difficult for us to let go and to move on to the correct way to warm up.  This type of stretching — static stretch — is best left for the purpose of improving flexibility (and strength in the case of asanas) and is best done after a workout (unless it IS your workout as in the case of a yoga).  What type of warm up do you do?  Do you stretch before or after a workout?

Posted in Exercise and Working Out, Misc, stretching | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »