Athlete In The City

I know how everybody likes to avoid, or just slack on their stretching.  I do it too.  But you know, stretching is important!  Flexibility promotes circulation, and nutrients at the joint, and discourages injury.  My personal feeling is it helps muscle to recover and grow quicker too, though I’m not sure if this is scientifically proven.  Anyway, on to the good stuff.

First stretch is to work each shoulder in opposite directions.  This picture is the basic version.  Even you big guys out there who lift a lot (or should I say especially you guys) should be doing this.

Once you work your fingers together doing this, you’ll eventually be able to touch your fingers together like this:

An advanced version takes it further, so you grab the whole hand as far as possible:

I’ve seen it done where people actually can grab the opposite wrist.  I’m not there yet, but hey, it’s worth trying!

Next is your basic backbend.  When you do this push the weight up into the shoulders as much as possible to reduce strain on the lower back:

We’re not done yet.  There are still two more ways that I know of to stretch the shoulders.  This next one is a great opposing stretch if you work the pecks a lot.  This really stretches straight across the front of your chest.  It also stretches the elbow joint.  I should know the name.  It will feel like the hamstring of your arm if you will, which really doesn’t get stretched very often:

Obviously you can use as long a piece of rope as you need to.  I’ve seen younger people touch the hands together.  So there is really no limit to how flexible you *COULD* be here.

Last but not least, let’s work the shoulders for the illusive manna move.  This stretch will feel uncomfortable at first, because you may have never stretched your shoulders this way before.

And that’s it.  Over and out, and Happy New Year.  Good luck with all your training in 2008!