Although stretching should not be undertaken as a distinct workout routine by itself by a body builder, it is important to incorporate stretching exercises in your bodybuilding regime. Ideally, stretching exercise should be performed as a warm up routine for five to six minutes preceding the weight exercises. This helps amplify the efficiency of the training session in three specific ways. These three are discussed in details here under.
The first benefits of including stretching exercises in your training regimen is increasing your muscle group’s and body part’s range of movement. This can be simply put as increasing flexibility of your muscle groups such that you can move to the entire range of motion that your muscle groups are naturally apt to cover without severing the joints, supporting ligaments and tendons. A consistent use of stretching exercises as a warm up before the main workout actually increases the length of most muscles and their connective tissues. The tendons are made more elastic by and by. Within no time at all, you are able to increase the range of the muscles movement. Your limbs and also joints can move further and more swiftly than before, extending to extents that would have caused injuries prior to the stretching exercises. That is physical fitness at its very best, a dream of every individual, body builder or not.
Secondly, consistent and regular stretching sessions as part of the wholesome training regimen for the muscles usually increases your body’s ability to efficiently perform many skills and movements in the gym. Remember that if you are serious about weight training, you need to be at your most flexible point. You will be dealing with immensely heavy weights, weights that can easily slip from your control and mess you up for ever. You need to be very agile, fast and reactive within nanoseconds, if you will be safe in the weight room training.
There is no better way of ensuring that you are apt in dealing with these giant weights than by stretching up before facing them. You need an abnormally wide range of motion for each and every muscle group. When you achieve this flexibility, injuries will very hard to come by. Since your body is able to take a variety of stances to prevent severing muscle ligaments and tendons. You definitely can do more things in the gym, and then, do them better. You can jump here and there, up and high, without pain or uncomfortable stiffness the day after.
Thirdly, consistent stretching exercises help in injury prevention especially for intense weight trainers like body builders and weight lifters. Once the muscle groups become flexible, the ligaments elastic and the tendons versatile, you will avoid most injuries that result form muscle tears, snaps and rips. No matter how far you go even sometimes outside the normal range of motion, unconsciously that is, the muscles will not snap or tear. They will be well in their form, as long as that is not made the order of the day. One of the major causes of training injuries ids lifting weights with stiff, rigid and stout muscles that are totally against any motion. So stretch up and go home smiling, injury free.
