Stretching is important for preventing injuries to your joints and muscles. It also increases flexibility and can tone your body as well. Depending on the exercise you are about to do, or the exercise you just finished doing, you will need to stretch specific parts of your body.
When you are focusing on your legs, here are some stretches you can do:
- Hamstring stretch: Stand up on your feet and hold one foot behind you with your hands and feel that stretch on your thighs. Another alternative is to lie on your stomach and hold your two feet behind you with your hands and pull your feet towards your torso. This also improves your arm strength.
- Calves stretch: Stand facing a wall and put your two hand firmly on the wall in front of you keeping your elbows straight. Bend one leg forward while keeping the other straight behind you. You should feel this stretch in your back leg in your calves.
- Inner thigh stretch: Sit spreading your legs out as far as possible from each other and lean
forward to the middle, then to the right leg and finally to the left leg. You should feel this stretch right in your inner thigh area.
- The twist: This stretch works on your outer thighs as well as your torso. Cross one leg across your other leg while hooking your elbow behind the leg being crossed over. Your torso should really feel this twist. Be careful with this stretch because you don't want to damage your spine so start with little intensity and work your way up.
Stretches for the arms:
- Reach one arm behind your back as if you are scratching your back, and pull that elbow downwards with the other hand. You should feel this stretch near your underarms.
- Start with your arms reached out to your side and make small circles gradually increasing the size of the circles. Then switch directions. This warms up your shoulder joints.
Stretches for the abdomen:
- Lye down on your stomach and put your hands by your stomach on the floor. Push up with your hands until your elbows are locked, and if you lean your head back, you should feel your abs getting stretched out
