Start Off Right: Flexibility and Warm Up

Youth hides many sins and wisdom only shadows the aged. This only begins to explain why many young athletes fail to recognize the value of preparation to both workouts and competition.

Athletes under the age of 30 can easily perform without much preparation. If they have 30 minutes to run, they run for 30 minutes. Muscles seem to tolerate the stresses of workouts, races, and games; therefore, the need to do more seems to be worthlessly unimportant.

The truth is that preparation, even at the tender age of 12, is not only necessary, but critical. The duration and level of achievement is ultimately directly related to the amount of warm up and preparation done on a continual basis throughout the formative years. Muscles, like overall health, improve over time. To educate and condition young muscles properly, with a consistent and thorough warm-up, makes radical differences in adulthood.

Unfortunately, our entire educational system is based on doing something only after a crisis has arisen. We're backpedaling when we need to be strategizing. The offensive approach has to occur on the individual level.

Here's my point;

You Must Stretch

For maximum everything, from performance to injury prevention to injury recovery, you need to stretch. If you don't, you're limiting your capacity. Without starting with a stretch, you may end up paying sports doctors looking for the magic cure or taking time off for injuries that only exist because you're unwilling to do what it takes, as in stretching.

For those who wish to know program for maximum muscular flexibility, performance and recovery, here's the list.

Total Program

I call this my 4-S PROGRAM:

• Stretching
• Strengthening
• Stripping
• Supplementation

These 4 components are necessary for peak muscular response.

Stretching

There is nothing magical about stretching. All you have to do is hit that switch in your brain that will allow you to be consistent and disciplined.

Strengthening

Strengthening naturally occurs as hill and speed work are done, but for total and improved conditioning, a weight-training program adds to any running program. Also, muscles that are not primary muscles in the running gait, such as side-to-side muscles, don't gain the strength that front-to-back muscles have in running. Needless to say, those muscles that are primary can gain even greater strength through a weight-training program. Finally, the stronger the upper body muscles are, the more glycogen storage and ultimate energy your body produces for longer runs and races.

Stripping

This means keeping a muscle clean on a consistent basis. It has been shown that a muscle cleaned frequently, as in multiple daily massages, the oxygen and nutrition transfer become much more efficient and the ability for that muscle to perform, not become injured and heal from an injury, goes up dramatically. Since most of us can't afford the time, energy or money for a personal masseuse on a daily basis, there are products available to help you reach your back or leg muscles on your own.

Supplementing

Runners have not had the luxury of quality sports nutrition. The body-building sports nutrition industry has become a multi-billion dollar enterprise. Do runners not have specific nutritional needs? We lose minerals with exercise, with improper nutritional intake, and with alcohol and caffeine consumption. Minerals make a major difference in keeping a muscle healthy.

Conclusion

Pay now or pay later. I spent years of looking and a whole lot of money and frustration to get myself back to 40 miles per week running without injuries. After learning the important of proper preparation, including stretches and good nutrition, I feel stronger, faster, and better.

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