Extended benefits
Why you should stretch more often than before
Stretching doesn't get the respect it deserves. Most exercisers absent-mindedly engage in a few minutes of it before or after a workout, which feels good but isn't enough to promote flexibility. According to experts, stretching should also be an essential stand-alone workout.
And it's especially important now. After months of quarantine inertia, stretching can be a gateway to a more active lifestyle. For people working from home, it can relieve the discomfort of working in a makeshift home office. And for essential workers, it can save tired backs and reduce discomfort and stress.
The benefits of stretching include increased range of motion, improved posture and reduced back pain.
A flexible body is more resistant to injury, but the kind of stretching most of us do isn't going to get us there.
“A lot of people misunderstand why they stretch,” says Brad Walker, an athlete, coach and stretching expert. Stretching as a warm-up prepares your muscles to be worked out, and stretching as part of a cool-down helps them return to their pre-exercise state. But for increased flexibility, says Walker, you need to set aside time to work specifically on it.
Walker says his clients generally feel they're getting more bang for their buck if they work out hard and sweat a lot.
But depending on the type and intensity, “you can fatigue yourself during a stretching session just as you would a gym workout, bike ride or run.”
“It's called a flexibility workout because it's a workout,” says Natasha Nikolaeva, who, with her sister, created StretchIt, which offers subscribers online stretching regimens.
With a stretching workout one or more days a week, you're still actively engaging muscles and building strength and range of motion.
Walker and Nikolaeva both say that stretching can yield pain relief, especially for age-related discomfort. A body that's strong and flexible is simply more comfortable, says Nikolaeva, who uses the analogy of a commercial airplane.
“If I'm sitting in coach, I'm getting there but I'm not comfortable. But if I move to business class, I feel a lot better. It's the same airplane going to the same place,” she says, “but I'm not in pain anymore.”
When the pandemic hit, many office workers switched to work-from-home setups.
Karen Litzy, a physical therapist in New York City, says this has robbed us of much of our daily movement.
Walking to the subway or bus stop, taking the stairs, walking to the conference room, leaving the office to go to lunch — it all seems so 2019.
“With Zoom meetings and phone calls, often back to back, we lose the ability to just stand up and walk around,” Litzy says. “People are staying in one position for way too long.”
Couple this with less-thanideal workspaces — those kitchen tables as makeshift desks, for example — and it's a recipe for stiffness and back pain.
There are a few tricks to moving and stretching more at home. Walker suggests setting up a couple of different work areas and moving from space to space throughout the day. Whether it's standing at the kitchen counter, 30 minutes on the couch or sitting at the dining room table, “just move the laptop somewhere else,” he says.
Litzy suggests a stretch you can sneak in during a Zoom meeting: Drop one leg off the side of your chair and extend it behind you with your knee bent and the top of your foot face down on the floor. The farther back you slide your foot, the more stretch you'll get in your hip and thigh. Shift to the other side of the chair and stretch the other leg. “To your Zoom colleagues,” she says,
“it'll just look like you're repositioning yourself in the chair.”
You can also try extending one leg in front of you with your heel on the ground. Lean forward from the hip with your back straight and stretch your leg and hip.
“It's positive in that we can actually stretch more,” Nikolaeva says. “I might be embarrassed to roll out a mat in the middle of the office,” she says, “but at home, I can do a quick 15-minute stretching session and use this time to get the most out of a sad situation.”
On the other hand, essential employees like medical personnel and postal workers are on their feet all day and suffer from sore backs, knees, shoulders and feet. Stretching can help. “If 10 minutes is all you've got,” Nikolaeva says, “at least that's something. And if you can do 10 minutes three times a day, even better.”
If you can sit down, Litzy suggests a seated forward flexion stretch. “You start seated in a chair with your feet and knees wide,” she says. “Then bring your chin to your chest and slowly roll down, reaching your hand to the ground.” Then roll back up one vertebra at a time, with your hands resting on your thighs.
Regardless of your work situation, stretching can help alleviate stress. “One benefit of stretching is that it improves posture,” Walker says. “And that opens up the chest, improves breathing and increases oxygen in the blood.”
People tend to hold their breath when they're under stress, he adds, and stretching prompts us to breathe more deeply and regularly.
That, Litzy says, activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which reduces anxiety and stress.
So squeeze in those five minutes of stretching.
Your mind and your body will thank you for it.