Like the question of how flexible do you need to be, understanding good pain versus bad pain when stretching is a bit subjective. However, I’ll do my best to provide some concrete guidelines.
First, just like your running training – too hard, too fast is not productive. You don’t need to have perfect flexibility or fix all your issues in one or two sessions or even over a week. Be patient with your adaptation to active and dynamic stretching and let your body be your guide. Second, don’t push past the point of pain. Remember the main priority of the nervous system is to protect the body from tissue damage. Third, a stretch does not have to be painful to be effective. Keeping in mind that stretching is more than just a muscular interaction, a stretch does not have to be painful (or even feel stretched) to be effective.
How many repetitions should I complete?
Unlike strength routines or interval workouts, active stretching does not rely on a set number of repetitions in order for the stretch to be “completed”. Stretching requires a degree of mindfulness about your body and how it feels. At first, you may not have this innate sense of your body, but over time as you practice these
routines you should develop one, but I’ll provide some general guidelines.
Your training load, recovery, personal biomechanics, and injury history are going to make the exact number of repetitions you should perform different for every person, every exercise, and every day. You want to learn to be aware of how your body is feeling, areas that need work, and how your muscles are responding to the stretching.
If you’re completely new to active stretching, start with just 5 repetitions of each stretch. Do not try to rush through the routine. Work on being mindful of your body’s movement paths, performing the exercise correctly, and feeling how your body responds. 5 repetitions makes the routines short enough to really take your time and will ensure that you don’t do too much too soon.
On “normal” days of training, perform 10 repetitions of each exercise. This repetition range is enough to improve or maintain flexibility without being too intensive. I define “normal” days where nothing is particularly sore.
On good days there will be some areas of your body that you don’t feel need to be more flexible. You have a good degree of range of motion, performing the stretch does not produce any soreness, and the area is never a trouble spot for you. For these areas, you can perform 5 repetitions. This is enough to maintain flexibility and
balance for the other areas you’re improving, but helps shorten the routines to help you fit in the AIS to your training.
Areas that are currently bothering you or are frequently injured should go through 10-15 repetitions. Do not do more than 15 repetitions. More is not better and after 15 repetitions there comes a point of diminishing returns and chance of injuring the muscle tissue.
Areas that are currently injured need to be stretched cautiously. This is where mindfulness becomes extremely important. Remember, most injuries are caused by tears in the muscle fibers or overuse in the tendons or ligaments. Light stretching can help improve blood flow to these injured areas and ensure the muscle fibers heal properly. However, intense stretching can cause more muscle tears and leave you worse off than when you started. Don’t aggressively stretch injured areas, test your flexibility to the point of pain, or
perform more than 15 repetitions on any one area. Healing takes time and patience, so practice this with your stretching as well.
2087
titsay
stormborns
ellievsbear
izzy806
dailybridgerton
kianamaiart