NWPT Results Manual - Section 4

As we get older, our metabolism, the number of calories we burn at rest, drops. This is related to a decline in the activity of our liver, kidneys, brain, and other organs as we get older. This declining rate is almost entirely out of our control – almost! Examine the following chart which breaks down our metabolism.

You can see that although your liver activity makes up the highest percentage of metabolic activity, there is really nothing you can do about that. It is in our best interest to keep our metabolism revving but we can’t decide “All right, I need to increase my metabolic rate, so I am going to get my liver in shape.” But in contrast, we can do something about our muscle activity which contributes 18 percent to our metabolic rate. Muscle comprises approximately 40% of our body weight. If you can get your muscles working at a higher level, the difference to your metabolic rate will be significant. By developing your muscular system, you will increase your metabolism. Muscle is an energy burning tissue and thus, the more of it you have on your body, the more fat you will burn both during exercise and during rest. How would you like to be sitting in front of the TV knowing you are burning more fat than you were before you started resistance training? In fact, one pound of muscle tissue expends an additional 30-40kcal/day. That does not sound like a lot but imagine that after an 8- 12-week resistance training program, you can expect to develop 3-4 pounds of lean, muscle tissue. That equates to an extra 90-160 calories being burned per day. Add this up over 365days/year and we are talking about 10- 14 pounds per year of fat either lost or not gained compared to not having that muscle mass. So, if your goal is to lose body fat or maintain an ideal body fat percentage and lean physique, that should be enough motivation to get you into the weight room.

We also know that on average, we will lose 3-5 percent of muscle mass per decade after the age of 25. In fact, the average sedentary 80-year-old man will have lost approximately 50% of his muscle mass. As a result, our fat mass will increase. If you want to reduce the magnitude of this age-related fat gain, start resistance training and depositing muscle on your body. The difference of having more muscle on our body is even more significant during exercise.

The difference in energy expended by a resting or working muscle is significant. When you start exercising, your muscles demand that your organs and tissues kick into action at a high rate. So if you have more muscle demanding more energy, your caloric expenditure will sky-rocket! One study compared the energy costs of treadmill walking between obese and lean, highly muscular men who were the same weight and height. The results showed that the energy expenditure was significantly higher at any given speed and grade of walking for the body builders compared to the obese males. Expenditure reached up to 100 calories higher for the muscular men at a moderate walking pace up an incline. These results demonstrate that just by having more muscle on your body, you will burn more energy both during exercise and rest.

Resistance Training Guidelines:

Here are some definitions that may help to clarify this component of your program:

Repetition: refers to the number of times you perform an exercise without stopping.

Set: refers to the number of times you perform a complete series of repetitions. For example, you may perform 2 sets of 10 reps.

The American College of Sports Medicine recommends one set of 8-12 (10-15 if you are 50 years or older) repetitions for each major muscle group 2x/week to improve overall muscle conditioning. This recommendation is also sufficient to maximize fat loss. The repetition zone between 8-12 is the favored prescription because it will cause improvements in both muscular strength and endurance. You can perform less or more reps but most people will achieve the greatest benefit, with the least risk, using 8-12 reps as the goal. You can do a greater number of sets and volume of resistance training but this is the minimum requirement to stimulate the muscle enough to show positive change to many health variables.

If you are a more advanced exerciser or looking to increase the size of your muscles, it may be necessary for you to increase your volume of training and include multiple sets and exercises for each muscle area. But just because you are an advanced exerciser, doesn’t mean you have to do multiple sets of any exercise. You can achieve a high intensity, advanced workout using only one set of a variety of exercises. Years ago, trainers were taught to prescribe 3 sets of 10 reps for every exercise regardless of the person or the goal. Well, things have changed since then. Recently one-set training has received a lot of attention. One-set training is just that: one set of 8-12 reps of each exercise. The trick is that each set must be performed to momentary muscle fatigue (we’ll talk about that in just a bit).

Many studies are now finding that one-set training can yield the same results as two to three sets. That’s very exciting news for the busy exerciser who can’t commit to spending hours in the gym. One-set training can dramatically cut down the time you need to spend in the weight room, giving you more time for other activities including cardio and stretching. Clients often have an easier time committing to their weight training program when they know they only need to be in the weight room for 30 minutes instead of an hour and a half. As a result of this consistency, they experience great results!

One-set training also allows for more variety. Many personal trainers would rather have their clients perform nine different exercises working the muscles in a variety of different planes and angles instead of only 3 sets of three exercises. For example, instead of doing 3 sets of chest press, do one set of chest press, one set of chest flies and one set of push-ups.

Now, keep this in mind. If you’ve been doing two or more sets of various exercises, it’s not that you’ve been training incorrectly. In fact, multiple set training has been used for years with great results but it’s not the only option. Research is demonstrating that intensity and not number of sets is the critical factor in weight training. So, by sequencing your exercises correctly and ensuring you hit momentary muscle fatigue with each set, you’ll be able to achieve very similar benefits in less time.

Many exercisers, wanting to lose body fat and understanding that muscle is critical to maximize fat loss, have made muscle conditioning a priority. However, by spending extra time in the weight room they have sacrificed cardiovascular exercise time. Both fitness components provide different health benefits and both are critical to overall health. Muscle conditioning is a must, but remember, you can’t neglect your cardiovascular training.

Foundational Resistance Training Principles:

When it comes to resistance training, technique is king. It’s important to stress quality in your movements versus quantity so it’s helpful to have a basic understanding of mechanics to assure you are getting the most out of our workouts. It makes no sense to perform 20 sloppy reps. It is far better to perform 8 reps with perfect form and then take a break. Reps performed with poor technique will cause slower progress and may put you at risk for injury.

Alignment – Before you start any movement, assure that your core is active and ready to brace your spine to assure you don’t have excessive movement in your low back. Assure that your joints are stacked appropriately for the movement and that your posture is perfect, and your spine is long and stable before you initiate the exercise.

Take it slow. Proper resistance training is not a fast sport. In fact, Wayne Westcott, a leading Strength and Conditioning researcher, suggest that one repetition should take approximately 5-6 seconds; that is 2 seconds to lift the weight and 4 seconds to slowly lower the weight in a controlled fashion. Most people lift much too quickly using momentum instead of muscle. A proper set of 8-12 repetitions should take approximately 1 minute to complete. As you advance in your program, your trainer may incorporate speed and power training, but it is typically done without heavy resistance and with tools that are more conducive to faster movements (medicine balls, body weight training, exercise tubing, etc.).

Breathe. A proper breathing rhythm will make each set more effective. Focus on exhaling as you lift the weight or when you exert and inhale as you recover or lower the weight.

• A good exercise set will finish once you hit momentary muscle fatigue. This is the point during which you absolutely cannot do another rep with perfect form. If you can perform more reps, you should either perform the extra reps to hit momentary muscle fatigue or next time, increase the resistance so you can hit momentary muscle fatigue within the suggested repetition zone of 8-12 reps.
• Never go to failure and avoid excessive load. You’ll know you’re lifting too heavy if you can’t maintain proper form and secondary muscles are kicking in to help lift the load. Sometimes you have to ‘step backwards’ by lowering the resistance in order to assure you are activating the correct muscles and stimulating them enough to produce results. It is important that you always avoid poor technique and muscle substitution. If you are working within the 8-12 repetition zone, if you cannot perform 8 reps, the weight is typically too heavy. If you can perform 12 reps with perfect technique, increase the weight by 5%.
• Perform your muscle-conditioning sessions on alternating days. You may be surprised to learn that you don’t get stronger when you weight train. You actually get stronger during the rest periods in between your workouts. At a cellular level, when you weight train, your muscles experience microscopic tears. The body responds to this effect by sending blood and nutrients to the muscles to help them heal. The muscles respond by getting stronger. So, it’s important never to work the same body part two days in a row. For example, if you can commit to 5 workouts a week, you may complete your cardio workouts on Monday, Wednesday and Saturdays and your full body muscle conditioning workouts on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Or if you can only commit to three workouts a week, you may do your cardio AND muscle conditioning on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. Or if you are doing a split routine, you could do your lower body on Monday and Thursdays and your upper body on Tuesdays and Fridays with a bit of cardio each day. There are many options and your trainer can help you design the best programming based on your goals and schedule.
• Put your mind into it. It is okay to disassociate while performing some fitness activities. For example, you can jump onto a treadmill and plug in a 8-minute mile pace and whether you think about it or not, you will expend the same number of calories. However, this is not the case with muscle conditioning exercise. You must focus on what you’re doing because there is such a strong connection between the brain, the nerves and the muscles. We know that if you actually concentrate on what you are doing, you can significantly increase the amount of muscle activity measured during these exercises. So, put down your magazines and really focus on each set. Each repetition and each set will become much more effective and you will experience results more quickly.

Which exercises will do the trick?

There are literally thousands of different exercises you could perform to get the results you are looking for. We don’t expect you to be the experts on program design. That’s our job. But here’s some of the principles that we adhere to you when customizing your program. At least you’ll know there is a method to our madness!

Analyze your Body – What are your strengths, weaknesses and imbalances? Before we design any program for a client, we perform a thorough fitness and postural assessment. Analyzing areas that are very weak and need to be strengthened, and areas that are really tight, overworked and need to be stretched is critical to creating a program that is going to optimize results and minimize injury. For example, you may sit hunched at a desk and computer all day that is causing a forward, slouched posture. This would indicate that you would need to perform exercises and stretches that will pull your shoulder blades back and down, elongate your spine, keep your head back in neutral position and your shoulders positioned in the correct anatomical alignment. A lot of people perform exercises in the weight room that are inappropriate for their body and are only compounding any existing imbalances and deviations. Decide how you’re going to allocate your training time. For example, you may decide that you need to spend most of your time strengthening your back, core and hamstrings in comparison to other body parts. You may decide to do 4 exercises for your back and only one exercise for your chest, or spend only 15 minutes on your upper body but 30 minutes on your hips, legs and core.

Progressions: At Northwest Personal Training, we progress clients through three stages of movement. Once they demonstrate that they can perform the movements in Stage 1 with excellent execution and no pain, they can then graduate to the next stage. The stages are as follows: Learning Phase, Progressive Phase and Elite Phases. Here’s a summary of what to expect at each stage of progression.

Start with basic exercises. It is necessary to progress from exercises that require the least amount of skill, coordination, balance, and overall fitness to exercises that maximally challenge these skills. This means that in the beginning, very basic exercises will do the trick. As you improve and master the technique of these exercises, then you should advance the program by incorporating more challenging exercises. It is important that you do not attempt a more challenging exercise without having first developed the basic foundational skills.

Here are some types of movements that will be included in your program:

Compound movements – Movements that involve many joints and muscle groups within one exercise. For the lower body, exercises like Lunges, Step-ups and Squats are compound movements. For the upper body, exercises like Chin ups, Rows, Bench Press and Push-ups are compound movements. These types of movements are important because they train the body in a fashion that is similar to how we actually move in everyday life. For example, every time you get out of a chair – that’s a squat. Every time you bend down to pick something up – that’s a lunge. However, you are going to want to progress into lunges and squats in a gradual fashion. In the beginning, start with just mini bends into squats and lunges and progress into the deeper lunges and squats once you learn proper knee tracking and alignment and your muscles get strong enough to handle the increased load. Many traditional exercises in the weight room are uni-jointed and involve only one muscle area. However, this is not how our body moves. Most of the movements we perform everyday are compound. If we want to get stronger and be able to use this strength in our everyday lives, we have to train the muscles in a way that will allow those benefits to carry over to real-life movements.

Integrated/Combination Training – These types of exercises are definitely compound in nature and involve combining two or more exercises into one, complex, fully-integrated, functional movement. For example, a squat with an overhead shoulder press would be a form of integrated training. A bicep curl while standing on a wobble board would be a form of combination training. The theory behind Integrated Training is as follows – most movements that we perform every day involve the upper body having to work together with the lower body while we have to balance our body and stabilize our torso. However, many traditional exercises in the weight room are very isolated. So, when someone is placed in an environment where the body has to use various muscle groups, the muscles don’t know how to respond correctly and effectively because they’ve never been trained to do this. It would be similar to a football coach taking each of his or her players and training them independently of each other. Although the coach could feasibly get each of the players into the best physical shapes of their life, if that team doesn’t get together and scrimmage, the first game will be a disaster. Our muscles work in a similar fashion. That is, each muscle can be strong independently of the others, however, if they haven’t learned how to react, oppose and resist each other, the strength in the weight room will not carry over as well into the real world. There are many cases of people who are very strong in the weight room – that is, they can lift a lot of weight. But they go home and lift some furniture or carry some heavy boxes and hurt their back and strain some connective tissue because they haven’t taught the muscles to work together. The message is this – you need to be strong in and out of the weight room. Integrated Training movements will help you achieve this goal.

The IDEAL NWPT 30 minute Full Body Training Session

Keep in mind this is an ideal template we recommend for most clients. Your trainer may adjust this program template based on your goals. For example, they may split your muscle conditioning sessions into lower body training days and upper body training days. They may sequence your exercises to focus on areas that are important to you. Again, since there a literally hundreds of different exercises to target all the components listed below, a trainer will help ensure you’re addressing all the important areas.

• Client arrives early to session to complete general system warm-up (ie Treadmill, Elliptical, Bike)
• First 5 minutes of session – general ROM warm-up and physical prep for session – Low load, low impact & low intensity– Medicine Ball Choppers/Tubing Rotations/Pulls/Presses/Leg swings
• At least 1 Full Body Integrated Movements/Cardio/Metabolic/Agility Drills
• At least 1 Compound Lower Body Movements (Squats, Lunges, Step Ups, Deadlifts, 1 Leg Dips)
• At least 1 Compound/Isolated Pulling Movements (Chin-ups, Rows, Pulldowns, Reverse Flies)
• At least 1 Compound Pressing Movements (Pushups, Chest Press, Overhead Shoulder Press)
• At least 1 Bridging Exercise
• At least 1 Hip Stabilizer Exercise
• At least 1 Shoulder Strengthening Exercise (Middle/Lower Trapezius/ External Rotator Exercises)
• At least 1 Spinal Stabilization Exercise
• At least 1 Spinal Rotation/Anti-rotation Exercise
• At least 1 exercise to strengthen the Spinal Extensors
• At least 1 balance exercise
• At least 1 mobility, ‘lengthening while strengthening’ movement
• Exercises performed in all movement planes (Sagittal, Frontal, Transverse)
• Exercises performed from all pillars of human movement including – Gait/Locomotion (travel through space), Level Changes (unweighting/weighting of body weight), Pulling, Pushing, Torso rotation
• At least 10-15 exercises/sets total in a 30 minute session
• Last 5 minutes (with/without trainer) spent cooldown/stretching/muscle release/Lifestyle Coaching/Action Steps

Change your program regularly. The only perfect resistance program is one that changes. A program that we design today, may be perfect today, but in about 4-8 weeks, it will no longer be perfect and not as effective. This is due to the Overload Principle – a training principle that all Personal Trainers must adhere to in order to help their clients experience ongoing results. When you first begin exercising, the body is exposed to a stimulus that it’s not used to and it will be forced to respond in a positive fashion by getting stronger and fitter. This is called a physical adaptation, which means that your body has structurally, biomechanically, and physiologically improved. But simultaneous with the physical adaptation is the physical plateau that many people experience. In order to experience ongoing results, the body must be stressed or stimulated to a greater degree than what it is used to. We know that the body needs to be challenged in order to progress. This overload principle can be adhered to by changing your program in a variety of different ways.

For example, you could:

• Increase the resistance you lift
• Increase the number of sets
• Increase the number of days you strength train from 2 to 3 days per week
• Change/Advance the exercises
• Adjust the order/sequence of exercises
  • It’s best to mix up the sequence of your routine during your weekly regime. For example, if you always do your cardio exercise first, next workout do a brief warm-up, then do your muscle conditioning exercises and then finish with your cardio. Then, on your next workout, do your cardio first and muscle conditioning last. And on another day, alternate back and forth between muscle and cardio. It will be a completely different workout and a new stimulus for your muscles and your heart. With that said, if your primary goal is muscle conditioning and developing muscle tone/bulk, you may want to do your muscle conditioning first when you have the most energy and strength so you can really focus on this area.
  • This same principle applies to lower body and upper body conditioning. For example, if you always do your legs first, then mix it up and next workout, do your upper body first and your lower body second. Or combine lower body and upper body movements into an integrated exercise. But again, if upper body is your focus, do this first when your energy levels are highest.
• Adjust the amount of recovery time you take between exercises.
• Utilize a different resistance training technique. For example, superset training, pyramid training, superslow training, split training, post-exhaust training, circuit training etc.
  • • When deciding which technique to use, remember there is no perfect training program. One study comparing nine different training routines found no statistically significant difference in the strength increase produced by any of them. They all worked equally as well! So, the message is clear – a multitude of training techniques will achieve results. Just be sure you change what you’re doing regularly.

This is where an investment in a personal trainer will save you a lot of time. Some of our clients see their trainer multiple times per week. But even just one or two sessions every 1-2 months, in order to make the changes required for you to see continued results, will go a long way in maximizing your workout time. IDEA, the International Health and Fitness Association, released a statistic at one of their International conferences. It stated that only 25 percent of people working out in a gym are getting the results they want. But out of the 25 percent of people getting results, 90 percent of them are working with a personal trainer. Another recent study showed that working with a trainer versus completing a solo workout produced greater, significantly better results. A trainer is going to push you harder than you’d push yourself and trainers are going to make sure your technique is solid and safe. So, it is quite clear that having a personal coach oversee your program, monitor your progress and make regular updates is an investment in your health worth making! Even elite level athletes have an entire entourage of trainers and coaches helping them achieve their best. If elite athletes can benefit from this one-on-one attention, can you imagine how much more the rest of us could benefit!

Top Tips to Build and Preserve Muscle

As we get older, we tend to lose muscle – approximately 7 pounds of lean tissue lost per decade with this loss accelerating after the age of 40. As a result, our strength and endurance is reduced, our metabolism drops resulting in weight gain, our bone density is lowered, our posture and alignment deteriorates, our balance falters, and we experience an increase in general aches and pains. So, it is absolutely critical that we do whatever we can to maintain our muscle tissue. Here are the top tips for preserving and building muscle:

• Strength Train – Commit to strength training at least 2-3 times per week. This is the most effective activity to build muscle.
• Lift Heavy – Heavier resistance and less reps is the preferred path to building muscle in comparison to lighter resistance and higher reps. Aim for 8-12 reps.
• Compound lifts – Perform exercises that are multi-joint movements that involve multiple muscles. Squats, lunges, rows, chest press and overhead presses are staple movements that build muscle.
• Volume – In order to stimulate muscle, perform multiple sets per body part. Strive for a goal of at least 10 sets per body part per week. How many times per week you strength train will determine how many sets you need to perform at each lifting session.
• Protein – In order to build muscle, you need to consume adequate protein based on your goal, age, weight and gender.
• Hydrate – None of your bodily functions operate well in a dehydrated state including building muscle. Strive for half your ideal body weight in ounces of water per day.

Many physiologists and researchers are deeming Muscle Conditioning to be the true Fountain of Youth – the magic “pill” to reverse or prevent a significant portion of the aging process. Your quality of life improves dramatically by preserving your muscle mass. Muscle looks good and it can improve your posture so that you hold yourself better and with more confidence. You’ll move with better strength, balance, coordination and agility and your performance in your recreational pursuits will be enhanced significantly. Strong is the new SEXY!

5 Tips to Prevent Falls

Consider these statistics:

• One in three adults over the age of 65 will fall at least once a year.
• More than 95% of hip fractures are caused by falling.
• A fractured hip is life changing with the majority never returning to former levels of independence and physical activity.
• Falls are the leading cause of injury and injury-related deaths in adults over 65 years.
• Twenty percent of persons 75 years or older require medical treatment due to falls.
• One in three adults over the age of 50 dies within 12 months of suffering a hip fracture. 50% of those hospitalized from a fall will die within one year of the fall due to secondary complications.
• Older adults have a 5 to 8 times higher risk of dying within the first three months of a hip fracture.

Falls and impaired mobility are a serious problem for our older adults. The good news is that much of the decline in balance and associated risk of falling can be reversed through a structured program. One study found that healthy people as old as 90 years can reduce the tendency to fall by 50 percent through balance training. Here’s the top 5 things you can start doing immediately to reduce your risk for falling.

1. Balance everyday – It’s critical than you challenge your balance system every day. A simple behavior to incorporate is to stand on one leg for 1 minute while brushing your teeth. Then switch and balance on the other leg for 1 minute. You’ll make your dentist happy and get 2 minutes of balance training every day.
2. Lower Body Strength – Falls are associated with lower body weakness so it’s important to preserve the muscle mass in your legs. Exercises like lunges, steps up and squats are important to incorporate into your routine. When beginning, minimize the depth of your movements and as you get stronger, you can go deeper.
3. 1 leg training – Any upper body exercise you perform on two legs, try to do it on one leg to incorporate more balance into your routine.
4. Balance Tools – There is equipment available that can effectively challenge your balance and strength. Tools like BOSU Trainers, wobble boards, stability balls, balance discs and even walking on a 2 x 4 can help to improve your balance skills.
5. Eyes closed – Stand for one minute with your eyes closed while maintaining good posture, alignment, and stability. For a more advanced challenge, try balancing on one leg with eyes closed.

Warning for our Female Clients:

Many of you may be concerned about putting on too much muscle. We realize that most women do not want to gain a lot of muscle and are not striving to look like a body builder. We want to assure you that you do not need to be concerned with gaining this amount of muscle. Women typically do not have the natural levels of growth hormone and testosterone to develop muscles in this manner. These women are a very small percentage of our population, most of them workout for hours in the gym, and they are most likely using some form of supplementation or ergogenic aid to help them achieve this type of muscle build. Following the muscle endurance and strength guidelines in this manual is not at all about getting bulky – it’s all about preserving the muscle you’ve got!

Fascia Fitness:

Fascia is connective tissue that surrounds and supports every muscle, organ, blood vessel, bone, and nerve cell. When your fascia is healthy, it is smooth and stretches with you as you move. If fascia is not healthy, it can get sticky, dry, thick, and tight causing restriction to movement and/or pain. The health of your fascia is critical to overall function and mechanics.

Fascia adhesions, also referred to as dried-out fascia, can happen because of inactivity, surgery, injury, or repetitive stress.

Here are 10 Steps to keep your fascia healthy:

1. Motion is Lotion – Your fascia responds well to movement so be sure to exercise daily. It doesn’t matter what type of activity you do as long as you’re moving your body daily. Walking is one of the simplest daily activities you can incorporate to keep your fascia healthy.
2. Avoid sitting for extended periods of time – Fascia does not like to be in the same position for extended periods of time. Set reminders on your computer to stand up every 30-60 minutes and move. Do arm circles, leg circles, leg swings, shoulder rolls, turn your head side to side and up and down, tap your toes, or just walk around your office. It’s one of the best things you can do for your fascia.
3. Move in 3D- Move your body in a variety of different planes using various actions. Include different activities in your weekly routine. Don’t get stuck doing the same thing all the time. Our fascia responds better when it’s required to stretch and move in three dimensions, so we want to make sure we’re not doing everything in a linear format. Incorporating dance and various sports and activities can be very helpful to assure you are moving your body in multiple planes.
4. Stretch – Incorporate yoga or stretching into your daily routine. Tight fascia causes pain and movement restrictions. Keep your fascia well stretched because the more flexible it is, the less likely it is to cause pain and affect your ability to move well.
5. Tap your arms, legs, hips, and torso lightly with your hands. This will get your blood flowing and improve circulation to your fascia.
6. Bounce up and down gently for about a minute every day without leaving the ground. Your fascia and connective tissue respond well to gentle bouncing.
7. Shake it out –Shake out your arms and legs to wake up the fascia.
8. Massage – Schedule regular massage, use a massage gun and/or give yourself a self-massage on your neck, shoulders, hands, arms, legs, and/or feet. This will increase blood flow to the fascia and improve circulation.
9. Roll it – Use a foam roller, lacrosse, tennis, or golf ball to roll over tight areas. This will keep tissues pliable and improve blood flow to your fascia.
10. Heat – Your fascia responds well to heat so incorporate sauna, steam room, hot tub, or hot baths into your regime.

Stretch it out:

As we age, our connective tissue becomes more tight and rigid. So if we’re already tight to begin with, this is really going to affect our posture, alignment and risk for injury. Add to this the fact that stretching is the most neglected component of fitness and we’ve got a problem. You see, most people either don’t stretch correctly, long enough or skip it all together. People often focus on cardio and muscle conditioning but forget how important stretching is. Unfortunately, the stretching-culprits are always those people who need it the most. The people who take the time to stretch are usually the ones who are really good at it. You can always find them in the front of a yoga class in a full straddle position with their chest to the floor or in an all-out hamstring stretch with their leg positioned almost behind their head! These stretching-enthusiasts enjoy their stretching sessions because it feels so good to them. But for people who are tight, stretching is usually a painful experience. Their muscles shake and they usually can’t wait to release the stretch.  It’s easy to see why stretching is eliminated from their workout.

However, when you examine the list of benefits associated with stretching, if you’re not stretching now, it should make you want to start.

Stretching Benefits:

• An increase in range of motion
• Improvement in mobility
• Reduction of low back pain and injury
• Decrease in the incidence and severity of injury
• Improvement in posture and muscle symmetry
• Reduction in muscle stiffness and soreness
• Promotion of mental relaxation
• An opportunity for spiritual growth, meditation and self-evaluation

It’s important to note that the warm-up and stretching portion of your workouts should not be confused. The warm-up is physical activity that increases the temperature of the blood, muscles, tendons, and ligaments. The goal of a warmup is to prepare the body’s freely moveable joint structures for vigorous physical activity while reducing the risk of injury. This segment, approximately 5-10 minutes in length, can include activities like low intensity movements, walking, or stationary cycling and should be intense enough to increase body temperature, but not so demanding as to lead to fatigue. Stretching exercises, to increase range of motion, are best presented after the completion of your cardio or muscle workout. The temperature of the soft tissues is elevated, making the end of a workout the best time for increasing flexibility. If you are just participating in a stretching or yoga class, it’s still a good idea to spend some time warming up and going through gentle range of motion before you begin deep stretching.

It’s also important that you focus on your breathing during each stretch. Try to breath slowly and deeply through the stretch and on each exhale try to extend the stretch a little further. Your goal should be to stretch to the point of light tension – you should never feel pain or a ‘shaking’ sensation in your muscles – back off on the stretch if you do.

You don’t want to develop muscles that are tight and short. So, after all workouts, spend time stretching and releasing muscles and tissues. Have your trainer design a stretching and mobility program that you can complete at the end of all of your workouts. The areas that tend to be the tightest and require the greatest amount of attention are: glutes (hips), hamstrings, quads, hip-flexors, calves, upper back, chest and shoulders.