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When you play sports or do a workout, do you take the time to recover and stretch? After you have been sweating and you are tired, it can be easy to brush recovery aside, but without recovery, you will be more likely to injure your muscles.

When you do sports or exercise, repetitive movements cause our muscles to shorten and feel tighter. This feeling of tightness is the result of small tears within the muscle tissue, and this restricts the joint movement. Stretching during recovery keeps the muscle flexible and more limber.

The benefits of stretching after exercising

• Increased range of motion – Stretching after you exercise can help to improve flexibility and range of motion for everyday tasks. Flexibility can diminish as you age but with efficient exercising and stretching, you can regain and maintain your full range of motion.
• Improved posture – Improved posture is a great benefit of stretching after sports and exercise. It prevents the muscles from getting tight, allowing you to maintain good posture. Having proper posture can minimise aches, pains and discomfort caused by working out.
• Better circulation – Stretching after sports or exercise increases the blood flow to the muscles. By increasing the blood flow, it brings nutrients and oxygen to the muscle tissues and removes the waste by-products. Improved circulation also helps to minimise recovery time if you have developed any muscle injuries.
• Coordination – Stretching allows you to maintain range of motion throughout your muscles and joints, keeping you in better balance. Balance and coordination help to keep you mobile and less likely to get injured from falling, especially as you age.

Stretching techniques

• Static stretching – A good recovery process for sports in general is static stretching of the muscles used in the sport/workout. This consists of stretching a group of muscles as far as it can go and then holding that position. This helps to realign the fibres in the muscle tissue, speeding up sports recovery. You should not feel pain at any point when stretching your muscles after sports. If you feel pain, readjust your position so it is comfortable.
• Dynamic body stretches – If the sport/workout you have finished included more strength aspects, the recovery process can include full body stretches to maximise the range of motion in the specific joints you just worked on. Dynamic stretches are moving stretches where the muscles and joints go through the full range of motion at a more comfortable and controlled pace. These can also be done before a workout to warm up the muscles and joints.
• Foam rolling – Using a foam roller or a ball reduces tension and tightness in the muscles at the end of sport/workout sessions. The pressure from either the roller or ball releases knots in the muscles and helps to reduce inflammation so you can get a better range of motion.

Roll on each muscle for around 30 to 60 seconds and you will be able to feel the pressure release. Muscle rolling can sometimes be painful if you push too hard so start slowly and increase pressure where you can.