2.01 Benefits of Flexibility

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Benefits of Flexibility

Flexibility

Flexibility is the ability to move a joint or a series of joints efficiently through a full range of motion.

The benefits of flexibility training include:

Decreased Risk of Injury: Stretching decreases resistance in muscle tissue structures, decreasing your chances of injury.

Reduced Muscle Soreness:

• Flexibility is increased.
• Muscle soreness after exercise is decreased.

Improved Posture:

• Stretching improves muscular balance and posture.
• Stretching can also help realign soft tissue structure and reduce the effort it takes to achieve and maintain good posture.

Improved Tissue Health:

• Stretching increases tissue temperature, leading to increased circulation and nutrient transport.
• Increases in circulation and nutrient transport lead to greater elasticity of the surrounding tissues and increased performance.
• Stretching also increases joint synovial fluid, allowing a greater range of motion and reduces joint degeneration.

Improved Physical Performance:

• Flexible joints can move through a greater range of motion.
• Flexible joints require less energy to move through the range of motion.

Factor Limiting Flexibility

Many factors can influence our flexibility in a negative way. Some are internal to our bodies while others are external. Let’s explore some of these influences.

Internal Factors Limiting Flexibility:

• Type of joint Internal resistance within a joint
• Bony structures which limit movement
• Elasticity of muscle tissue
• Elasticity of tendons and ligaments
• Elasticity of skin
• Temperature of the joint and associated tissues

External Factors Limiting Flexibility:

• Temperature of the place where one is training
• Time of day
• Stage in the recovery process of a joint (or muscle) after injury
• Age
• Gender
• One’s ability to perform a particular exercise
• One’s commitment to achieving flexibility
• Restrictions of any clothing or equipment

Effects of Aging

Joint motion becomes more restricted and flexibility decreases with age because of changes in tendons and ligaments.

As the cushioning cartilage begins to break down from a lifetime of use, joints become inflamed and arthritic.

As you age, focus on flexibility to diminish the potential for arthritis or other degenerative diseases.

Self-Assessment

Flexibility Self-Assessment

Now that you have learned a little about the basics of flexibility, let us look at a few flexibility self-assessments that you can perform.

We will assess three areas:

• Shoulders
• Hip Flexors and Hamstrings
• Age

Shoulder Test

What it measures: Flexibility of the shoulder joint.

How to do it:

1. Extend one arm above your head.
2. Then, reach behind your head and as far down your back as possible.
3. Bend your other arm behind your back at waist level and reach up to the midpoint of your back.
4. Try to touch your fingertips together.

V-Sit

What it measures: Hip Flexor and Hamstring Flexibility.

How to do it:

1. Remove your shoes. Sit on the mat with the yardstick between your legs, the 36-inch end facing out.
2. Put a strip of tape across the stick at the 18-inch mark. Keep your legs straight, heels on the tape at that 18-inch mark, with feet about 12 inches apart.



3. Sit up straight. Clasp thumbs so hands are together with palms facing down on measuring line, exhale, and slowly reach forward as far along the yardstick as you can, lowering your head between your arms.
4. Perform the test to keep legs flat on the floor while slowly reaching forward as far as possible and keeping fingers on baseline with feet flexed. Do not bounce.



5. Relax, sit up, and repeat for a total of four attempts, noting the farthest inch mark that you reach.

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Sitting-Rising

What it measures: balance test

How to do it:

1. Standing barefoot, try to sit on the floor with as little support as possible from your hands, legs, arms or other body parts. Crossing your legs is fine.
2. From the seated position, try to stand up, again with as little support as possible.
3. Give yourself a score of five if you sat with no support at all and five if you got up without support. For each support required, such as a hand, forearm, knee, side of a leg or hand on a knee, subtract 1 point. Subtract a half-point if you were wobbly sitting or standing.
4. Do the test twice and combine your best scores sitting and rising.

Physical Activity

You are learning about the benefits of flexibility.

Flexibility is important to your overall wellness.

All warm-ups and cooldowns will become more specific in the next few weeks as we focus on choosing proper exercises for flexibility.

Jumping Rope

We will add jumping rope to your activity to give you a change in your workouts. Your goal is to understand that there are benefits to working on your flexibility every day. You will learn basic stretching principles and add them to your jump rope workout.

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Through this activity, you will learn:

• How to warm your muscles up before you stretch.
• How to properly stretch muscles.
• How to jump rope correctly.
• How you feel after you complete 45 minutes of this exercise.
• How to choose a heart rate zone.
• How to assess whether or not if you achieved your heart rate zone after each workout.

Stretching

It is very important that you never stretch cold muscles.

In this unit you will jog for five minutes before you do a warm-up routine.

Next, perform the following stretches in your warm-up routine. We practiced all of these stretches in the previous unit. Perform each stretch for 60 seconds on each side for 10 minutes of stretching.

Stretching Handout

Neck Stretch

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Shoulder Stretch

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Quad Stretch

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Hamstring Stretch

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Butterfly Stretch

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