Her colleague Brandy Maddron felt she needed to take advantage of every opportunity to give her fitness routine a boost, since she lacks a gymnastics or dance background. College coach Andrea Hudy, MA, CSCS, believes an athlete can perform better by increasing her range of motion.

The common thread for each of these women is flexibility, or the ability of a joint to move in its full range of motion. Although each uses a different method, all three advocate stretching to achieve the ends they desire.

The trio's support of stretching is welcome news to Michael Alter, a former gymnast, coach and physical-education teacher who has parlayed an interest in the subject into two influential books, Science of Flexibility (Human Kinetics, 1996) and Sport Stretch (Human Kinetics, 1998). He believes stretching has multiple benefits for the fitness-minded, and not just physical ones.

"First, it's spiritual, in terms of the union of the body, mind and spirit," Alter explains. "There can be a relaxation of stress and tension that can be both physical - in the muscle - and psychological."

Libby, a self-described Type A personality who won her IFBB pro card at the '99 NPC Nationals, agrees. "The more I stretch, the more I find inner peace," she says. "But you have to work at it; you have to relax and let your muscles relax. It starts from your head and goes through your body."

Alter also believes stretching on a regular basis can help develop discipline, since you have to plan it into each day. It helps to improve fitness, posture and symmetry as well, which tend to deteriorate with age, often resulting in a hunched-over "dowager" appearance.

"Suppose somebody's got rounded shoulders," he posits. "Usually either the pecs are too tight or the back muscles are too lax. Or both. So you'd want to stretch the pecs and strengthen the traps and rhomboids."

Whether increasing your flexibility reduces the chance of injury is debatable, Alter notes. But in theory, stretching elongates tight muscle fibers, which can help reduce the chance of injury, relieve muscle cramps - possibly even those associated with painful menstruation - and alleviate the typical postworkout muscle soreness.

Although a possible reduction in injury risk and improved posture are ample testimony to the benefits of stretching, one additional advantage might concern most fitness enthusiasts and other athletes even more: A greater range of motion can improve performance in the gym, on the court, on the field or just about anywhere.

Timing is everything
No matter why you want to begin a stretching regimen, no such program should begin with cold muscles. For that reason, a warm-up of 5-10 minutes on a bike or treadmill is strongly advised. "What you want to do is elevate your body temperature," Alter says. "Doing so will make your tissues more elastic and pliable. If you're cold and you stretch, you increase the risk of tearing or pulling a muscle, tendon or ligament."

Libby warms up for 20-40 minutes before stretching. "I have such thick muscle tissue, it takes me a little longer to warm up and get into a stretching mode," she explains. Hudy, the associate head strength and conditioning coach at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, prefers warm-ups that are more tailored to her athletes' individual activities. "We'll use a lot of agility activities or form running, walking lunges, things like that," she says. "As long as you increase your body temperature and start to sweat lightly, it's a proper warm-up."

In a perfect world, gym-goers would stretch immediately after their warm-ups, between sets and again at the end of their workouts. "I encourage people to do all three," Libby notes.

Brandy, who earned her pro card at the '99 Team Universe contest, advocates stretching between sets. "It helps prevent injury and keeps the joints loose," she explains. "You don't have to do it for a really long time; stretch for 30 seconds and go on to the next set."

1  |  2  |  3    

| Print Page | Email to Friend