ot good to stretch at the beginning of a workout. You must let your body warm up at least five minutes before doing any type of stretching. If you had to decide between stretching before or after the workout, after would be better. Stretching after a workout will help in several ways. Stretching the fatigued muscles right after a workout helps not only to increase flexibility, but also enhances the development of muscular growth, and will actually help decrease the level of soreness. After a strength workout, your muscles retain their tightness, and are shortened somewhat. This "shortening" is due mostly to the repetition of intense muscle activity that often only takes the muscle through part of its full range of motion. With this activity, the muscle will appear larger. At that time your muscle is filled lactic acid and other by-products due to the strenuous workout. If the muscle is not stretched after the exercise it will retain these by-products and never maintain the same length that it had. Stretching this muscle will allow the muscle to stretch back out and do-away with those by-products. Also a heavy workout will often cause damage to the surrounding tissue. Without stretching the muscle, this tissue will heal at a shorter length. But with stretching involved before healing, the time to heal is shorter and the tissue will not shorten upon healing.Everyone can stretch regardless of age of flexibility. You do not need to be in good shape or be an athlete to be able to stretch. Stretching feels good when done correctly. You do not have to push your limits to progress in an effective stretch routine. Neither should it be a contest to see how far you can stretch. This will most often lead to injury. Rather stretching should feel more relaxing than anything, and should not feel uncomfortable in any way. If there is pain during a stretch then that is a good sign there is something wrong. If you stretch and exercise regularly,...
