Stretching exercise

‘Every time I heard about exercising, I felt like it meant painful straining. I had never imagined exercising can be fun until when I discovered stretching exercises.’ Such statements are not only common at the evening training ground but almost everywhere you would meet two or more people.

Very many people still have the odd feeling that exercising is a straining and painful aspect of human life. True, most people do it for the sake of their health, just like swallowing a bitter pill in the interest of a healthy living. But tell you what; exercising can be fun, exciting and a very pleasant experience if you try stretching exercises. Possibly you are still in doubt. But let us examine the basics – what stretching is and what it is not and in any case how does one stretch?

Stretching at a glance

As pointed out earlier, exercising should be fun. In fact you should learn to do exercises that you will hunger for, meaning that you should always look forward to your next exercise. This means your exercises should be easy and less straining. This is where stretching comes in full view!

Stretching involves gently pulling the muscles by voluntarily extending the limps. Stretching exercise can be done at any time in any position. This means you can stretch with ease while standing, seated or even while sleeping/lying on your bed or couch.

The other good news is that you do not need a fitness trainer and indeed you don’t even need to be athletic to stretch your muscles. It is just a very simple and exciting procedure.
Let us look at how it is done…

When sleeping or lying on a bed, try to fit yourself on the entire length of the bed. In this case, you do not need to complain about being too short to do that. In fact the shorter you are the more exciting it will become! To do this, place your feet at the end of the bed and try to stretch your hands up to the upper part near the drawers. If this is done with ease, then leave the hands out of it and try to stretch the neck instead, so that you perfectly fit in your bed with the head on one end and the feet on the other. Of course you must remember that this is not a punishment, nor is it a competition – so simply keep it easy. If you do this in a relaxed situation, you will most likely laugh off your every move and that’s the fun of it all!

When seated, you can try to push your head up to your toes with your legs straightly placed on the ground. Then move the fingers to the middle of your back. And please you must always remember that this is not a punishment, so keep it easy. It is best done in a place you are comfortable with. You may even do this behind closed doors if you fear being observed.

Stretching exercise can also be done while standing. Just increase the fun of it by trying to touch the sky without jumping! That sounds very funny indeed. Doesn’t it? Boxing the air and pulling your hands towards your feet while standing can be of great help. In real sense, stretching should act as a relief to the muscles and not as a punishment.

Therefore, exercising can no longer be seen as a straining and painful procedure. Exercising is not a punishment, neither is it a competitive game. So why should it be straining? It just has to be fun! The world has changed, all things have been simplified. There is therefore no reason to do straining and painful exercises for whatever reasons. And please, take a minute and consider this; with stretching, exercises can be done at anytime in any position and by anyone. That should be easy and fitting for everyone. So have you decided to take on stretching exercise?