The value of weight-bearing exercises is critical in everything from keeping muscles toned and strong as we age, to boosting bone density. Yet, weight training alone isn’t the answer to a healthier, happier body as we age. Without proper flexibility, strength training can even hamper attempts to keep a healthy posture. Today we look at why stretching needs to be a key part of every healthy aging and posture program.
Why strong muscles alone aren’t enough
If you’re actively working on load-bearing exercise, you will help keep your body stronger for longer. In turn, you age better and stay fit and independent much later. It’s not just about muscle strength, however. We already know that aerobic fitness (fitness that conditions the cardiovascular system and keeps the heart and lungs healthy) is part of the puzzle. The other key is keeping flexibility through stretching.
Strong muscles still shorten and become tight if they are not also conditioned to be flexible. While it’s a step above weak, tight, muscles, it’s still not a good place to be with your body. In fact, a muscle that’s artificially ‘tight’ through overtraining the strength aspect of muscle fiber growth without keeping it long and flexible is more likely to tear or damage. Stretching loosens muscle in a good way, allowing it to react with elasticity and rebound immediately. Strength and stretch go hand-in-hand in a healthy body.
How stretching helps your posture
What does this balance between strength and stretch have to do with your posture? One of the key aspects of poor posture is muscular imbalance. Whether through injury or lifestyle changes like staying hunched over a keyboard at work, muscular imbalance is common. We overtrain specific muscle groups, and this encourages the body and spine into positions we are not intended to use. This creates a cycle where pain and injury follow, and as anyone who’s spent a long day at the PC can attest, muscle tightness is not far behind.
It’s this muscular tightness that pulls the spine out of line and causes pain. While you will need to address any muscular weakness that contributes to the imbalance as well, stretching these tight muscles is the first, key, step to recovering good posture and spinal alignment. Returning these muscles to a state of malleable flexibility, instead of tight tension, allows you to work on your posture.
How to incorporate stretching into your day
While you may not be able to do a weight workout during your lunch break, stretching can be incorporated anywhere. You can enrich your life by adding a pilates or yoga class to the mix, but simply taking five minutes every hour to stand, walk, and work the kinks out of your back is a great start on the road to good posture. If you do have a gym workout already, make sure you are adding flexibility with exercises like a biceps stretch or quad stretch to your rotation.
Maintaining flexibility is remarkably easy, but it’s often neglected. If you want to maintain good posture and a pain-free spine for as long as possible, it’s time to make sure you stretch regularly for your health and wellness.
