Stretching The Boundaries

Happy New Year, People! You’ve landed on the fitness segment… I don’t know if that was by chance or if you made your way here on purpose, but either way, this is the time of year when people tend to make a real concerted effort to improve their fitness and adopt healthier ways. Is that you? If so, I would imagine you would want to work as efficiently as possible. Exercise can be physically tough, time-consuming and money-consuming to boot, so it makes no sense (at least to me anyways!) not to undertake any kind of activity that would serve no purpose. Allow me to clarify this statement though; if the sole purpose of the activity is pleasure then that’s reason enough to do it, but for many, exercise is a pain in the ass during January and occasionally February.

 

This next point is probably going to develop some opposition, but I’ll state my reason for the claims by referring to thorough scientific experiments undertaken by reputable figures in the world of exercise physiology. The point is, stretching is not at all effective, so if you’re looking to develop a fitness routine, you could be using your time much more productively. Getting fit, (whatever that means to you) is really tough so undertaking any activity that gets in the way isn’t going to help. 

 

Ok, so you need some citations to back this up? There are literally dozens of reputable sources that do so.

Before I get inundated with hate mail from yoga enthusiasts, please acknowledge this isn’t an attack on yoga. Yoga is an ancient practice that has survived remarkably well, but the (physical) benefits, of which there are many, that are derived from the practice are related to working the body in physically demanding positions and not stretching per se. There are many positions that would be considered to be disadvantageous to the body in terms of getting it working well mechanically, but the good tends to outweigh the bad overall.