Stretching and Flexibility
Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 2:23 pm
Flexibility is a pretty important part of fitness to me for a variety of reasons, so I thought I'd share a little of my research into the subject.
Firstly, Shovelgloving really pushes the limits of wrist, forearm and grip strength for me, which seems to put a fair amount of strain on the various small muscles and tendons in those areas, so I like to keep them all loose with some Aikido stretches that I picked up many years ago. I like to hold each stretch for 10 to 15 seconds at a time, gradually increasing the tension as I go. Nikyo is my favorite.
Like many people in our modern, push-button age I spend most of my 40-hour work-week sitting at a desk, so I have a lot of problems with my trapezius muscles getting stiff from sitting improperly, slouching and bending over my keyboard/paperwork. I like to stretch them out pretty regularly like this and by "hugging myself" tightly and sort of bending my upper back forward, but keeping my lower back upright (it's difficult to describe and I can't find any pictures of it).
I also like dynamic stretching, which earns a lot of weird looks from my co-workers when I'm doing it in my cube, but it feels nice and has helped get my kicks higher, so I'm willing to deal with them. They already think I'm a bit . . . odd. That site has a lot of really good stretching advice and excellent pictorial descriptions of a huge number of stretches, both static and dynamic.
(this part will probably get cross-posted to the Everyday Systems forum) I have an alarm set on my computer to make a little sonar sound every hour to tell me get off my bony hind end and stretch for 1 or 2 minutes. Every hour it's a random muscle group or two, usually based on what feels the stiffest, what I worked out that hardest that morning, and/or what's actively hurting at the moment. I got the idea from an ergonomist that I met at a health and safety conference in May. Regular, frequent stretching is great for the muscles, stimulates circulation and improves productivity. Best of all, 2 minutes or less is pretty solidly schedulistically insignificant, so you don't have to feel like you're taking time out of your day to do it. Just make sure your coworkers can't see if you're the type to get self-conscious.
Kind of a random point to bring it all together, but there's a lot of talk among fitness gurus that stretching during and after a good workout increases strength gains by 20-30% by spreading the new muscle growth over a larger area and avoiding short, bulky muscle fibers. There's a lot of talk about static stretching being useless or even dangerous when done before a workout - I think it's because the muscles stretch better when "warm" because there's increased blood flow through them, so I usually do some dynamic stuff before doing statics.
This has gotten a lot longer than I meant for it to, so let's make it your turn: What do you do stay limber?
Firstly, Shovelgloving really pushes the limits of wrist, forearm and grip strength for me, which seems to put a fair amount of strain on the various small muscles and tendons in those areas, so I like to keep them all loose with some Aikido stretches that I picked up many years ago. I like to hold each stretch for 10 to 15 seconds at a time, gradually increasing the tension as I go. Nikyo is my favorite.
Like many people in our modern, push-button age I spend most of my 40-hour work-week sitting at a desk, so I have a lot of problems with my trapezius muscles getting stiff from sitting improperly, slouching and bending over my keyboard/paperwork. I like to stretch them out pretty regularly like this and by "hugging myself" tightly and sort of bending my upper back forward, but keeping my lower back upright (it's difficult to describe and I can't find any pictures of it).
I also like dynamic stretching, which earns a lot of weird looks from my co-workers when I'm doing it in my cube, but it feels nice and has helped get my kicks higher, so I'm willing to deal with them. They already think I'm a bit . . . odd. That site has a lot of really good stretching advice and excellent pictorial descriptions of a huge number of stretches, both static and dynamic.
(this part will probably get cross-posted to the Everyday Systems forum) I have an alarm set on my computer to make a little sonar sound every hour to tell me get off my bony hind end and stretch for 1 or 2 minutes. Every hour it's a random muscle group or two, usually based on what feels the stiffest, what I worked out that hardest that morning, and/or what's actively hurting at the moment. I got the idea from an ergonomist that I met at a health and safety conference in May. Regular, frequent stretching is great for the muscles, stimulates circulation and improves productivity. Best of all, 2 minutes or less is pretty solidly schedulistically insignificant, so you don't have to feel like you're taking time out of your day to do it. Just make sure your coworkers can't see if you're the type to get self-conscious.
Kind of a random point to bring it all together, but there's a lot of talk among fitness gurus that stretching during and after a good workout increases strength gains by 20-30% by spreading the new muscle growth over a larger area and avoiding short, bulky muscle fibers. There's a lot of talk about static stretching being useless or even dangerous when done before a workout - I think it's because the muscles stretch better when "warm" because there's increased blood flow through them, so I usually do some dynamic stuff before doing statics.
This has gotten a lot longer than I meant for it to, so let's make it your turn: What do you do stay limber?