Stretching

Stretching is vitally important when warming up for exercise. After a warm-up gets the blood pumping around the system, we stretch the major muscle groups to loosen and prepare them for the dynamic stress exercise that we will load onto them. Well, one thing you probably didn’t realise is that properly integrated stretching in a weight training programme can actually speed up your muscle growth.

The connective tissues that surround the muscles are very tough and hug the muscle fibres tight. This can actually constrict expansion and growth. For muscle hypertrophy to occur the surrounding fascia needs to be stretched and become more pliable in order to give the muscle fibres room enough to expand grow bigger. Stretching Even if you haven’t seriously focused on stretching before, the muscle mass that you have built up to this point came about from the stretching and expanding of the muscles encasing tissue.

During your workouts, when blood is being pumped into the muscles, the surrounding connective tissues are being stretched, that’s why you get that tight feeling we call “the pump”. The ideal time to stretch for increasing muscle mass is right after you’ve trained a particular body part and the muscles are “pumped up” and feeling tight. At this stage, the connective tissues are already being stretched from the blood volume in the muscles, and then by manually stretching the muscles as well, you get a double whammy effect that really increases the muscle fibres growth potential.

Another key benefit of stretching is it improves the shape of the muscles. Expanding the fascia and connective tissue pulls the muscles apart and enhances separation. Below is a set of recommended stretches. Carry them out rhythmically and steady load on and off, try not to force the muscles.

Some simple stretches that you can incorporate into your workouts. For example, after you train a particular body part, go through the above list of stretches and perform the ones that stretch the muscles you just worked. You DO NOT have to do every stretch after every workout, just the muscles that

you have trained. And then as you go through your workout cycle, you’ll train and stretch each and every muscle. The actual time and commitment you’ll be doing these stretches is minimal.

We are only talking about 5-10 minutes at most at the end of your weight training. But I can guarantee you that if do these stretches on a regular basis you’ll see noticeable improvements in your muscle fullness and separation within the next 6-8 weeks....