Author: Model Welt

When you think of developing a strong, muscular physique what type of exercises do you think of doing? To improve and develop strength most individuals focus on lifting weights – exercises such as bench press, push ups and flies – that focus on powerful pushing and pulling movements. Cardiovascular activity usually takes the passenger seat, when it comes to developing strength – unless you’re involved in a sport that requires a lot of endurance training, or if you want to loose excess body fat on top of improving your strength.

Stretching – unfortunately isn’t even put in the strength development category, because most of us figure that since it’s a low intensity movement it’s purely for cooling down after our workouts. However stretching isn’t merely a great way to cool down – trust me it can actually help make you stronger. That’s why I feature a great stretching diagram on my website, FitnessGear101.com.

The benefits of stretching have numerous effects on your weightlifting progress. Just remember when you stretch you should feel slight tension in your muscles, but no pain!

Stretching is your key to the following fitness pluses:

Increased Strength – Stretching actually helps to increase your muscular strength because it expands your range of motion, and range of motion literally applies to weightlifting. For example when you lift in a wider range of motion compared to a smaller range, you’re enlisting the help of more fibers, making your muscles stronger.

Reduced Stress – We all know that stretching helps reduce the stress and tension in our exercised muscles, but did you know that a quick 20-mintue session of stretching can also release most of the tension that built up throughout an entire workday?

Improved Posture – Flexible muscles are your key to good posture, because stretching promotes balanced muscle tone in all the major joints in the body. This affects your strength training because good posture reduces stress and soreness in the muscles and joints, letting you get back to the gym faster.

Improved Speed & Reaction Time – if you’re an athlete you’re aware of how important agility is to top performance. Flexible muscles make you quicker on your feet. This allows for you to run faster in sports like soccer; react quicker by making saves in hockey and by maneuvering around opponents in football.

Decreased Muscle Soreness – This means less time off from the gym and your game, and more time to devote to developing those muscles.

Ease of Movement – If you’re not an athlete, never fear, stretching does more than improve sports performance. It makes simple daily tasks easier as well, by lessening the general stiffness in joints so you can bend down, reach up and lift things easily. Stretching will also affect the future of your joints by making you less likely to develop joint pain later in life.

Reduces Chances of Injury – More flexible muscles translate to less chance of injuring tight muscles during exercise. Take for example your hamstrings, the muscles that run down the back of your upper legs. I like to compare the hamstrings to an elastic band – the flexible hamstring has a lot of stretch; whereas the inflexible hamstring is that dried out elastic that breaks when it’s stretch too far.

What is it about stress and stress management that everybody has their panties up in a bunch about now-a-days? I mean do we really think that our society today is more stressed out than back in the days when people were dying right and left, eaten by large animals, starving, being shot with arrows, etc.? I mean you’ve got to be kidding me right? Well yes and no. The fact is that people who are stressed out by today’s standards have more life limiting diseases such as cancer and heart disease and these are also the same people who aren’t living as long. This is in comparison to the average person who doesn’t face any of the stresses like those mentioned above and the present day people that do.

So what the heck is going on? Well there has been a lot of research done on the nature of stress and the mechanisms that were designed by God in our bodies to deal with it. Most people have heard of the fight-or-flight response and this turns out to be a major mechanism that affects our health negatively. So what has changed? This mechanism is certainly been helpful to our ancestors as they dealt with stress–a life preserving rather than life limiting process. Well it turns out that the kind of stress that we face today turns this system on almost as well as the other more immediate life threats but our bodies don’t absorb it in the same way and so it goes unnaturally unchecked and takes its toll. We therefore need a different type of stress management than we were naturally getting by running away from the large beast that was trying to eat us.

Exercise is one obvious type of stress management that helps to use up or absorb some of the sympathetic tone that is the “fight-or-flight” response to job and life stress. It does things like check the increased heart rate and the high amounts of insulin and other hormones in our system, and it gives us natural mood enhancing substances (endorphins) which counter the stress response as well. Another aspect is the cognitive response to stress that needs to be addressed.

Partly or emotional and mental health is addressed by exercise but it also needs to be addressed in terms of some of the behaviors that we choose to dull rather than correct our unhealthy stress response. We need to find correct ways of thinking rather than use substances like alcohol, nicotine, and illicit drugs to mask our low moods. We need to train our minds to think positively. We need to find alternative activities and vents for our feelings like art and social release. We need to eat better and be out side more to get the natural anti-depressants that are found there and are much healthier. Only then will we be approaching stress management in a healthy and life extending way.

Some call it a Swiss Ball, some call it a fitness ball, others use the more modern term ‘stability ball.’ Whatever you call it, the stability ball has been used in exercise and rehabilitation for years and has recently been adopted by personal trainers and fitness instructors for use in strength training and muscle development, especially when it comes to exercises designed to strengthen the core muscles.

The American Council on Exercise (ACE) says that core strength is important because the muscles of the lower back and abdomen serve as a solid foundation for nearly all bodily activities, movement, and posture. Incorporation of the stability ball into an exercise routine helps to further strengthen core muscles due to the continuous adjustments that the body’s muscles must make to remain stable on the ball.

Use of the stability ball has become fairly common is core-based exercises like crunches, but many trainers have discovered benefits of using the ball in other exercises as well. It can even be used in non exercise settings to help strengthen core muscles. Reebok University Education manager Lisa Wheeler recently told CNN correspondent Kat Carney that stability balls can even be used by office workers. Replacing the desk chair with a stability ball can lead to strengthening the core muscles while simply sitting at one’s desk.

A stronger core can benefit anyone, but golfers in particular will see benefits from the increase in core strength and stability, leading to longer drives, and better posture and balance. If you want to improve your core, get on the ball!