Correct stretching - effectiveness and methods

What exactly happens when you stretch your body and is stretching useful for every athlete? We explain the different stretching methods and the benefits and dangers of stretching your muscles.

Stretching basically lengthens your muscle structure. Every joint in our body is surrounded by ligaments and muscles. This stabilises the joint. **Each of your muscles has an insertion and an origin. The stretching of your muscle structure occurs when the insertion and origin of the muscle are as far apart as possible. This stretches your muscle structure with its fasciae, making your fasciae more flexible. Fasciae are the connective tissue of your muscles. The reason you do stretching exercises by holding them for longer is that your body needs a while to realise that this movement is not a 'danger' to your body. The muscles gradually relax and allow the stretch. This slowly reduces the feeling of tension.

On the one hand, stretching prevents muscle shortening, increases the mobility of your joints and strengthens tendons and ligaments. Stretching also has a stress-reducing effect. Stretching also helps to release tension and reduce pain. Stretching also improves your body's coordination and stimulates and increases blood flow to your muscles.

Stretching exercises are usually only necessary if your sport requires extreme flexibility or you have to perform very fast movements, including sports such as sprinting, gymnastics or ball sports. Otherwise, you can still incorporate stretching into your training if it feels good for you. Stretching exercises are also used after illness to restore mobility.

Regular stretching improves the flexibility of a specific muscle area. Make sure that the typical feeling of tension develops when stretching. When the feeling subsides, go deeper into the stretching. However, you should not feel any severe pain and the feeling of tension and stretching should still be bearable.

Never stretch with sore muscles, as your body is already stressed by the tears in the muscle fibres. Do not stretch with a severe injury - unless it has been agreed with your doctor for rehabilitation. It is not advisable to stretch the body after an intensive workout. The reason for this is the increased amount of lactate in your muscles. This will damage your muscles.

Stretching too often increases the risk of injury. Do a stretching session for no more than 10 minutes. Stretching every other day is sufficient to benefit from the positive effects.

You can differentiate between two different types of stretching - static and dynamic stretching. Which method you should choose depends on the timing and intention of your workout

As the name of this stretching method suggests, these stretching exercises involve movements. These are repeated around 10-15 times, stretching your muscles through gentle movements. The focus is not on a single muscle, but on your entire body. Stretching promotes the coordination of your various muscles through the interplay of several muscles. Stretching also stimulates your circulation.

Incorporate dynamic stretching into your warm-up for your actual workout or use it as a cool-down after your workout. If you are struggling with cramps, you can often relieve them with dynamic stretching exercises.

Dynamic stretching is particularly suitable for athletes involved in weight training or ball sports. This stretching is also suitable for sprinters and therefore also for endurance sports. To summarise, for sports that require you to move quickly.

Static stretching exercises are much better known. With static stretching exercises, you hold a certain position for around 20 seconds, which increases your flexibility. Static stretching is suitable for runners, dancers and gymnasts, for example. These sports require a lot of flexibility. This stretching method promotes flexibility.

In contrast to dynamic stretching, static stretching should only be used after warming up or after training. Otherwise, stretching will weaken your speed and the strength of your muscles. You will be less efficient during the actual workout and when practising your sport.

The timing and goal as well as the sport practised** are decisive for the choice of static and dynamic stretching. Pay attention to which area of your body you want to stretch and perform each exercise gently. A combination of both stretching methods is also possible - dynamic stretching before training and static stretching after your workout.