So following on from last weeks blog where I spoke about the importance of recovery (sleep & stress) to help build muscle and drop body fat, I’ve since been spending 15 minutes everyday consistently stretching and I feel great for it!
This will most certainly help my performance in the gym as flexibility is definitely not my strong point. Since doing this everyday, I can already feel the difference in my body. I feel more supple and that I can move with less resistance, and generally feel I have more energy.
Our bodies are just like a car… we need to look after and maintain them otherwise they will just go rusty and break. So spending 15 minutes a day to service your body can make a huge difference to how it performs and how it feels. This is something I have always done but intermittently; I am now working on making it a longer lasting habit that I do every single day because I don’t just want a body that looks good but a body that feels great and performs at it’s best.
When we stretch it’s not so much what we are doing to the muscle tissue itself, but more the fact we are taking time out, lowering our stress levels and stimulating the parasympathetic nervous system. This is the side of our nervous system that is associated with rest and digest (recovery), and can help calm the body bringing it back to balance from the stresses of life. I’ve been treating these 15 minute stretching sessions as time out of my day to relax as if I’m meditating, focusing on my breathing and taking away all distractions.
I would highly recommend checking out romwod.com as they have some great stretching routines that you can follow. It takes away the need to think, which is great as it means you can just focus on winding down.
So this week is more of a reminder that we need to be mindful of the physical state of our body and not just its appearance. Never sacrifice your health just to look good, because one day it will catch up with us.
We only get one body so we better take care of it 🙂
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