Why Invest Your Time Warming-Up And Doing Stretching And Mobility Exercises? - Part 1A
aggressive an approach or not doing the exercises correctly. Moreover, others state that you will definitely get injured if you do not do stretching exercises every day. I read a detailed description of the construction of the muscle and how it works, and the article recommended stretching and mobility exercises as a result of the process of muscle contraction described in a very simplified form below. When I got injured years ago in 1977 and had a course of ultra-sound, the physiotherapist, a woman called Carol Boston, told me to do stretching exercises every day.
In addition, it is also believed that stretching exercises help dissolve any residual lactic acid left in your muscles - Horwill states that a good warm-up prevents muscular soreness which I take to mean less lactic acid build up in your muscles. This should reduce the risk of cramp - I have woken up in the middle of the night and writhed about in agony from an attack of cramp, and pulled my calf muscle into the bargain!
On balance I would say that stretching does not necessarily prevent an injury as other factors can come into play - but you will get injured if you train regularly and do not do stretching/mobility exercises. It's better to be safe than sorry,
MUSCLE EXTENDIBILITY, MOBILITY OF THE JOINTS, AND FLEXIBILITY
Focus Question: In what way do extendibility and mobility interact? For your sport, how flexible do you need to be to practice it?
The Italian coach Enrico Arcelli, in his 1989 book "La Maratona: Allenamento e Alimentazione" explains that the aim of stretching is to improve the following aspects of your body's abilities:
1 Muscle Extendibility
This is the ability to stretch passively without the muscle meeting much resistance. An extendible muscle is one which lengthens a lot and easily.
2 Mobility of the Joints
The body can be thought of as being composed of two halves which are articulated in the middle. Each of these two segments of the body has an axis. On movement the difference in the angle between these two segments changes. The difference between the minimum and the maximum angle of the axes of the two segments during movement forms the mobility necessary during physical exercise.
3 Flexibility
The product of extendibility and mobility is flexibility. When one part of the body flexes a lot in respect of another part of the body, the muscles need to
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