Let's review the last article "Misunderstandings and Introduction of Xiaobai Fitness (I)". We discussed the misunderstanding of fitness and the design principles of fitness program (safety and effectiveness). Then, we analyze the cardiopulmonary function, the most important goal of fitness. In fitness, you must first know your maximum heart rate, then calculate the appropriate heart rate interval according to your fitness requirements, and then match the appropriate exercise.
This time, we will discuss the second goal of fitness-flexibility. Maybe many boys will disagree when they see this: flexibility is only for girls! But is this really the case? In fact, for daily life, flexibility is more important than muscle, which can reduce sports injuries and have a great impact on the quality of life after old age! There is a folk saying that "the tendon is one inch long and the life span is extended by ten years". Although a little exaggerated, it does show the importance of flexibility to our health.
Flexibility refers to the range of motion of human joints and the stretching ability of soft tissues such as muscles, tendons and ligaments, and is an important part of physical fitness. In the process of fitness, we often pay attention to the training of strength, speed, endurance and technology, while ignoring the training of flexibility to a great extent. The human body has more than 300 skeletal muscles. The better the muscle elasticity, the better the flexibility. If the muscles are tense for a long time, they will lose their elasticity. The maintenance of joints needs to stimulate joints through exercise. The main functions of flexibility include:
1, to avoid sports injury
A large number of training practices have proved that strengthening flexibility exercises can enhance muscle elasticity, increase the toughness of tendons and ligaments and effectively prevent sports injuries. On the other hand, athletes with insufficient flexibility training are prone to muscle strain and ligament tear due to poor extensibility of muscles and ligaments in intensive training and competitions.
2. Improve the quality of life of the elderly.
When you are old, many people will find it difficult to comb their hair and scratch their backs, but they can't lift their shoulders. Some elderly people have difficulty in dressing and can't tie their own shoelaces, all because their body flexibility is not enough, which seriously affects the quality of life of the elderly; There are still some old people who are left unattended, even afraid to take a bath, for fear of falling, which is also caused by poor flexibility and balance. Therefore, if you want to live an elegant and leisurely old age, you must exercise your physical flexibility!
For a simple method of flexibility test, please refer to the flexibility test in the KEEP course. Flexibility of lower leg, back thigh and back shoulder joint will be tested. If the hand can reach the toes, it means that the flexibility is good. If the finger is above the toe 10 cm, it is considered excellent. If your hands can only touch your knees, be sure to strengthen your flexibility exercise!
The following figure
Flexibility is so important, so how can we improve the flexibility of the body?
When most people talk about flexibility exercises, they will think of static stretching such as leg press and straddle.
Carol, an American sports expert, has done a lot of comparative experiments and found that compared with those who don't do static stretching before the game, those runners who are used to doing a lot of static stretching need to spend more effort to reach their usual stride and stride frequency, which reduces the running economy.
It can not prevent sports injury before exercise, but also reduce muscle strength and reactivity. It should be static stretching after exercise and finishing, which will have good results. So what do you do before exercise? -Dynamic stretching
Dynamic stretching means that continuous stretching will move to all joints that need to be used. Running needs knee flexion and extension, but our general static stretching activities can't reach this part. Dynamic stretching can be better, without leaving the ground and causing harm.
Let's take a look at the following group of KEEP warm-up exercises before running, a group of *** 13 movements, of which 7 groups are dynamic stretching of joint activities, followed by jumping, leg lifting and hip kicking. , is a common dynamic stretching action. In this way, the whole body joint is simply moved first, and then the dynamic stretching is carried out. After the heartbeat is accelerated and the whole body sweats slightly, you can enter the exercise stage. Through the practice of this group of movements, you can move your joints well, avoid sports injuries and improve your sports performance.
Static stretching: it is to stretch the muscles of all parts of the body to a fixed posture with gentle and slow movements, and then keep it for 20 seconds to 30 seconds. According to the principle of muscle contraction reflex, this kind of action will make the contraction from tendon stretching reflex produce less physiological reaction. After the action is maintained for a period of time, the muscle can stretch longer, relax and get higher softness. The stretching method of static stretching action can minimize the tension produced by muscles, which is one of the simplest and safest methods to improve softness.
The benefits of static stretching: improving the state that muscles are too stiff and tight, exercising the stretching ability of muscle tendons, increasing muscle elasticity, and storing more elastic potential energy during exercise.
Static stretching is suitable after exercise, and the static stretching time of different muscle groups should be controlled within 30 seconds, which can eliminate fatigue, remove lactic acid accumulation and promote faster recovery. If you don't stretch your muscles well after exercise, the muscle bundle is likely to become shorter and shorter, and eventually it will become a protruding muscle. It takes more time to stretch, so as to change back to the original slender calf!
Let's take a look at the stretch after KEEP running:
3. Movement sequence
If you feel more nervous in some parts of your body after exercise, it is probably because you are not prepared before exercise. We think that muscles are rubber bands. If they have tied a knot, stretching during exercise may make the knot tighter and more uncomfortable. So what should we do? Exercise sequence: first knot: massage with foam shaft, open the knot of the body, then do dynamic stretching, then do special training, and finally do static stretching. For the muscles that feel hard, do some relaxation alone, so that the whole set will be relaxed and comfortable, which is a good training. If the body is tight or the joints are uncomfortable after exercise, it means that there is something wrong with the content and order of exercise. With these arrangements, the flexibility of joints will get better and better.
PS: About the foam shaft: Let's talk about the foam shaft exercise mentioned above separately. I like to relax with foam shaft, which can massage muscles, relieve soreness and stovepipe! It should be noted that: don't move too fast, first put the foam shaft on the pressure point and press your whole weight on it until you feel that the muscle tension has eased. The rolling of each muscle group is limited to 30-90 seconds, and the muscle stretching of 10 second is done between the rolling of each group. Each muscle group should do this exercise at most 3 times. There is also a foam shaft course on KEEP, which you can follow.
To sum up, this time we talked about the importance of flexibility and explained the order of dynamic, static stretching and movement:
First, "dynamic stretching"-then "movement"-and finally "static stretching"
It is a scientific and effective method to train flexibility, and it can also avoid sports injuries and promote physical recovery.
If there is no coach's guidance and personal advice, refer to the course exercises on the sports APP. These courses are summarized from experience and simplified, which are more suitable for beginners. Pay attention to the difficulty of marking papers when practicing. For example, KEEP 1 is the most basic entry. You can start practicing from KEEP 1 Don't start with high-intensity exercises of KEEP3 and KEEP5, but step by step.
Well, the first two articles introduced cardiopulmonary training and flexibility, and next time we will talk about muscle endurance training. I wish you happiness and scientific fitness!
Thank you for your attention!