Okay, so you’ve just decided to get fit and everything you read and everyone you ask says that you should always stretch before and after a workout to avoid all kinds of dreaded injuries. Despite all this good advice you’ve always skipped the stretching and just got straight into your workout, either that, or you‘re too pooped at the end of your workout to be bothered. Well we’ve all been there so don’t beat yourself up over it!

It’s generally not going to cause to many problems if you skip the occasional stretching session. However, if you are regularly skipping your stretching you are asking for all kinds of trouble in the long term.

Stretching increases the length of your muscles and tendons along with their ability to cope with suddenly increased exertion without tearing, or in very extreme cases, snapping…..ouch!

Stretching also increases the space around the joints slightly, decreasing the risk of wear and tear between bones and cartilage.

Any pre-workout stretch should last for about 10-20 counts. This increases the length of your muscles from their norm, ready for the workout.


A post-workout stretch should last for 20-30 counts and stretches the muscles that have been contracting throughout your workout back to a more normal length. This will avoid the stiffness associated with too much contraction.

Well that’s the boring injury prevention side to stretching out of the way, but there are some other, very good, reasons for including a bit of stretching in you programme.

1. First, stretching the muscles you’re about to use will boost the power and stamina of your muscles during your workout. Well stretched muscles with have much more elasticity, and springiness. Imagine the rubber strap of a sling-shot pulled taught. You can probably clearly imagine the increase in power you would achieve the further back you pull the slingshot. As for the slingshot, stretching your muscles is essentially loading them with potential energy ready to be released. What’s more is that the power released from stretched muscles and tendons comes for free, as its simply recoil from all that stored energy.

So if you’ve got more stored energy through stretching your movements will be powered by more free energy and you’ll be a more efficient machine using less stored energy to get the same results. The net result is that you’ll achieve better gains in speed, weights-lifted, power or distance travelled – whatever you’re going for.

2. Second, in stretching you’ll be increasing the blood flow to your muscles, which in turn will deliver more oxygen to the muscle cells. With increased oxygen comes an increase in available explosive power as this is your body’s primary fuel for energy conversion. So, you’ll be able to cope better with sports that have fluctuating levels of demand for power. If you play basketball, hockey, football you’ll know about this. They all require lots of shorts bursts of running, jumping and power interspersed by intervals of less activity.

3.Lastly, stretching is fun! Especially when you keep in mind all of the benefits you’ll be getting. If you workout with someone, stretching can almost be made into a workout in itself.

Stretching and holding for a number of counts before moving on to the other leg or arm etc. can be done to music injecting a bit of life into what, lets face it, could otherwise be the most boring part of our work out.

Holding stretches for a count of 10, repeated on both sides and then holding for 9 counts on the both sides, and so on and so on down to a count of 1 can really allow for a deeper stretch without the stress of going for a single long power stretch. This technique is commonly used by dancers who need to prime the muscles before a routine, but it lends itself very well to other activities like running, cycling or swimming.

Just remember not to bounce! (see do’s and don'ts)

Do’s and don'ts

Do strike a pose!

Try to maintain a good posture when stretching, this will protect you from injury and help you to achieve a deeper stretch.

A great way to learn how to hold a posture is to do a yoga class or two, no piece about stretching would be worth reading without mentioning the benefits of a bit of Downward Dog and few Sun Salutations (both yoga postures, not real ales or alco-pops!).

Any beginners class will guide you through the basics of stretching and really help you to understand how posture can make all the difference. There are a number of different yoga techniques ranging from the more intense workouts of Ashtanga, to the slower, more gentle classes of Hatha or Iyengar. All forms use the same postures for the most part, but they differ in the number of repetitions of particular postures and the speed that you move from one posture to another.

Go for a beginners Hatha session if you’ve never done any kind of stretching before as this will ease you into it nice and gentle like. You may think that a yoga if for big girls blouses but for God’s sake don’t jump straight into an intermediate or advance Ashtanga class. You might get through the class but you’ll be hobbling round like a 120year old for days after. Such intense stretching will only give you sore, sore muscles and tendons, be warned!

Do breathe!

It’s amazing how many people just don’t breathe when they are stretching. You can see them going red faced, groaning ”Hhnnngh” and then explosively expelling the carbon dioxide from their lungs. All this does is starve the muscle of oxygen and increases the chances of getting a stitch.

Breathe deeply and in a controlled way and you’ll find that your stretches get deeper and easier! By holding a stretch for a number or breaths rather than counting the seconds you are automatically making sure that you breathe into the stretch, easy!

Do relax

Try to relax into a stretch (breathing as outlined above). Visualise the muscles you want to stretch softening, lengthening and letting go of any tension that they are holding on to. For instance, visualisations like imagining your tummy forming an icecream scoop shape as you do forward-bending hamstring stretches will really help relax the stomach muscles that would otherwise stop you from achieving a full stretch.

Don’t go for the burn!

You should only really be aiming for a gentle feeling of stretch, if you’re in pain you’re going too far. Remember that if a muscle or tendon isn’t used to being stretched it’s not going to unravel to its maximal length just because you tell it to! It takes time to retrain your body and for you to build the new muscle tissue for that deeper stretch.

Stretch only to those points where you are still comfortable but still feeling the stretch. With repeated sessions you’ll find that your muscles/tendons soon get in to the habit of stretching more and more with each session. You’ll be touching your toes in no time!

Don’t bounce!

Never stretch out too far, too quickly or bounce repeatedly into a stretch. This will cause a protective contraction reflex that will hamper your efforts to stretch the other way and could cause greater levels of stress and even tiny muscle/tendon tears!

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