App Thursday: Lastics Office Stretch

Las­tics Office Stretch is ideal for any­one look­ing for two– to four-minute stretches that are eas­ily done at the office. This is the per­fect mobile com­pan­ion for any­one who needs a short break from star­ing at a com­puter screen or who is stuck on con­fer­ence calls all day. What’s great about these Las­tics’ stretches is that you can fol­low along and they don’t require a lot of space and time. Try them any­where, any­time through­out the day. Incor­po­rate them into your daily rou­tine and notice marked improve­ments in your flex­i­bil­ity, mood and over­all sense of well-being.

Descrip­tion
Stretch­ing has been proven to reduce stress, improve heart health, increase cir­cu­la­tion and much more.

Donna Flagg, a trained dancer, cre­ated Las­tics to give peo­ple a way to stretch that really works. Most peo­ple think they are stretch­ing when they actu­ally aren’t and they won­der why their flex­i­bil­ity does not improve. They assume that it is due to the nat­ural lim­i­ta­tions in their bod­ies rather than attribut­ing it to a flaw in their tech­nique. Las­tics changes all that, and who bet­ter to show you how than a dancer?

Fea­tures:

• High-quality videos
• Each 2–4 min­utes in length
• Easy to follow
• Ideal for any­time, anywhere
• Bet­ter than a cof­fee break!

Cost
$0.99

Com­pata­bil­ity
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Learn more →

Stretching is an Everyday Activity

FROM ACTIVE​.COM

Hey friends! Thanks for join­ing us today. We had fun work­ing out with you. If you had fun work­ing out with us, add more fun to your life by sign­ing up today!

Research reports that reg­u­lar stretch­ing may be more effec­tive in pre­vent­ing injuries than occa­sional stretch­ing and a review of seven out of nine stud­ies indi­cates that reg­u­lar stretch­ing improves sports per­for­mance. My motto has always been and con­tin­ues to be “Stretch­ing is for every day” (almost every day, whether we have exer­cised or not)!

Every day we move, bend, sit, walk (crane our necks?) and repeat the same move­ments dur­ing our day–this can tighten our mus­cles and cause what we call repet­i­tive stress syn­drome. We may even sleep in the wrong posi­tion dur­ing the night forc­ing our mus­cles to work harder to sup­port our spine and hence wake up feel­ing tight and stiff.

So, for those of us who stretch occa­sion­ally, rarely or never (I hope it’s not never!), here is my tip about stretch­ing that I send out at least once a year. More of my “how-to-stretch” tips can be seen in the cur­rent June issue of Body + Soul mag­a­zine titled “Sim­ple Stretches” with great pho­tographs illus­trat­ing some sim­ple but impor­tant every­day stretches to help us get started.

Why is stretch­ing so impor­tant? Stretch­ing increases our flex­i­bil­ity. Flex­i­bil­ity is a com­po­nent of fit­ness. When we increase our flex­i­bil­ity, we help to increase our over­all level of fit­ness AND we may pos­si­bly increase other aspects of fit­ness such as mus­cu­lar strength and endurance (ever have a stiff joint and feel fit?).

Stretch­ing can ease repet­i­tive stress syn­drome. This is also called overuse syn­drome. Do we sit at a com­puter? Ever hear of carpal tun­nel syn­drome, or have we devel­oped poor pos­ture? Stretch­ing the mus­cles and ten­dons that become tight from repet­i­tive move­ments com­bined with a strength­en­ing pro­gram can pre­vent or help heal these chronic con­di­tions that all of us are sus­cep­ti­ble to. Stretch­ing slows/stops our nerves from fir­ing. Won­der what causes a mus­cle spasm? Over-firing of our nerves causes the mus­cle to over-contract. Stretch­ing sends a sig­nal to our nerves to stop fir­ing. This in turn helps our mus­cles to relax.

Stretch­ing keeps our joints more lim­ber. Each joint has a dif­fer­ent degree of move­ment. This is called “range of motion.” For instance, we can bend our knee back­ward bring­ing our heel to our butt, and our hip can bend in mul­ti­ple direc­tions with vary­ing degrees. When we stretch prop­erly, we can main­tain an opti­mal range of move­ment (oth­er­wise we get stiff, and our func­tion is altered).

Stretch­ing and increased flex­i­bil­ity can help to pre­vent injuries. When our joints and mus­cles are lim­ber and flex­i­ble with move­ment through the full range, we have more bal­ance and coor­di­na­tion. When we retain our flex­i­bil­ity, our ten­dons retain their elas­tic­ity which reduces inflam­ma­tion and “ten­donitis” injuries (who hasn’t expe­ri­enced tendonitis?).

Stretch­ing can help us find mus­cle imbal­ances. When I first meet a client I assess their flex­i­bil­ity because I can find the mus­cle imbal­ances which we all cre­ate in daily life or sport activ­i­ties. Reg­u­lar stretch­ing can help us to find and lessen these imbal­ances which can ulti­mately lead to injury.

Stretch­ing can be a great stress reliever. We can take a time-out from stress by stretch­ing, which is a great way to relax. Easy stretches can be done in a chair at our desk when the ten­sion mounts. Add in a lit­tle deep breath­ing to increase our oxy­gen sup­ply to the brain and may we find our­selves feel­ing and think­ing better.

Do we need a recap? Stretch­ing more often can help us to relieve mus­cle ten­sion, pre­vent stiff­ness, injury and overuse syn­dromes. It can con­tribute to bal­ance and coor­di­na­tion and help us to reduce men­tal stress. We get all this and it feels good too!

Have we stretched today?

Warm-up vs. Stretching

Side note: Thank you to all our friends that joined us this morn­ing for our Try Us Out day! You all seem ready for a full month! Sign up today!

BY DANIEL

Ever won­der why we stretch after a work­out, and seem to wear our­selves out before the work­out has even started? Recent research sug­gest that rais­ing our heart rate for a period of 3 min­utes, or longer, will increase our blood cir­cu­la­tion and help pre­vent injury dur­ing intense exercise.

A proper warm-up should improve the blood flow to the work­ing mus­cle, which results in decreased mus­cle stiff­ness and enhanced per­for­mance. The increased mus­cle tem­per­a­ture also increases the effi­ciency in which the mus­cle expands and con­tracts releas­ing more oxy­gen and improv­ing endurance.

Stretch­ing, on the other hand, pro­vides no insur­ance against injury, but is still an essen­tial part of any fit­ness pro­gram. Stretch­ing is the only way to improve one’s range of motion and is the pri­mary method for car­ing for one’s joints and lig­a­ments. For best results, stretch­ing should be per­formed when the mus­cle is warm and each pos­ture held for at least 30 sec­onds. Long-term effects of stretch­ing can be real­ized in about six weeks.

For more infor­ma­tion on warm-ups and stretch­ing please check out these arti­cles on About​.com:

The Warm Up — How To Warm Up Before Exercise

When to Stretch — Why Experts Rec­om­mend Ath­letes Stretch After Exercise

Did you enjoy today’s warm-up? Drop us a line by click­ing “Com­ments” above!

Good for What Ails Ya

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is a re-post from last year. There­fore, some of the com­ments are also from last year and may or may not be rel­e­vant to today’s workout.

BY LEIGH

After a cou­ple days at camp you may be expe­ri­enc­ing some sore­ness. While that is to be expected, espe­cially if you are new to a fit­ness regime, there are some things to con­sider to help you through it.

• Stretch: Stretch­ing through out the day helps to keep you loose and lim­ber, as well as increas­ing blood cir­cu­la­tion to the mus­cles. Increase blood flow will accel­er­ate heal­ing and over­time will increase energy lev­els due to the increased accel­er­a­tion. How­ever, If you are afraid you have pulled a mus­cle or have a mus­cle tear, do not stretch that mus­cle it will only get worse.
• Drink: Water that is. Most causes of sore­ness include a build up of lac­tic acid in the mus­cles. Drink­ing water is a good way to flush out that build up.
• Go for a soak: It might sound a lit­tle hokey and/or grandma-ish, but tak­ing an epsom salt bath can do won­ders for your sore mus­cles. You can pick up a box at any drug store.
• The cold treat­ment: Cold show­ers or ice baths get the blood flow­ing through the mus­cles to the sur­face. As men­tioned before the increased blood cir­cu­la­tion helps accel­er­ate healing.
• Don’t stop: Sore­ness should be expected after most if not all of our work­outs. It is one of many sig­nals from your body that you are push­ing your­self and get­ting stronger. By con­tin­u­ing your exer­cise reg­i­men you are rais­ing your bod­ies lim­its and over time less likely to expe­ri­ence sore­ness for the same level of exer­tion. Feel­ing a lit­tle sore should be one of your goals for every workout.

If you are expe­ri­enc­ing some­thing that feels more than just sore­ness or you have incurred an actual injury, try RICE. Though not of the brown, white, or fried variety.

• R: Rest. Take a day or two off to give your­self a break. Try to limit any activ­ity that results in pain.
• I: Ice. Apply ice to the affected area. See icing guide­lines here.
• C: Com­pres­sion. Get an ACE ban­dage and wrap the injured area. Be care­ful not to wrap it too tightly though, you want to make sure the blood is circulating.
• E: Ele­va­tion. Prop that twisted ankle up on some pil­lows. Wher­ever the injured area is, try to get it ele­vated higher than your heart.

Let us know if you have occurred an injury or if some­thing feels awk­ward. There is a good chance that one of the train­ers or even a vet­eran camper may have expe­ri­enced some­thing sim­i­lar. How­ever, none of us are doc­tors or nurses, so if you think it is some­thing seri­ous do not hes­i­tate to get a pro­fes­sional med­ical opinion.

Let us know how you’re feel­ing after Day 2. Post a com­ment by click­ing the “Com­ments’ link above this post!