Hypopressive is an effective method to improve posture and Flexibility. Especially strong and flexible muscles are able to resist postures for prolonged time. Stiff joints or too weak muscles affect the posture.
Hypopressive Improve Flexibility Because…
- Improves functional range of motion.
- Prevent lower back pain and injury.
- Enhance posture alignment and symmetry.
- Delayed muscle fatigue and muscle spasms.
- Fast recovery after exercise.
- Improves fitness performance and efficiency in certain sports.
- Calms the mind and relax the body.
- Decrease risk of injury.
- Improve muscle strength and power.
Is Lower Back Pain Related to Lack of Flexibility?
One of the main reasons of lower back pain is tightness in the hip flexors, Importantly, a good flexibility of the hip flexors protects the back from tightness and improve posture.
What is flexibility?
Flexibility is related to an effortless joint mobility while maintaining a perfect joint stability. Without a doubt, an efficient range of motion is necessary in activities of daily living, such as getting up from the floor, and squatting to pick up a grocery bag.
Factors that Affect Flexibility
Many factors can affect the flexibility, such as age, gender, exercise and job history, temperature, and pregnancy.
Age. Flexibility decreases with aging. Age produces changes in the viscoelasticity of the collagen properties. As a result, a decrease in the length of muscles is very common with aging. Regular exercises routine including daily stretches can delayed these changes, and can minimize or prevent injuries.
Gender. Females tend to be more flexible than men, due to anatomical differences in joints and bone structure.
Exercise and job history. Body-lifter who don’t stretch tend to have adaptive shortening of muscles and lack of flexibility. In contrast, a person who spends prolonged time sitting tend to diminish flexibility.
Temperature. Warm ups increase body temperature and tends to increase flexibility. On the other hand, a low body temperature contributes to less flexibility.
Pregnancy. The hips are able to expand due to hormones levels changes, the hormone is called Relaxin. However, Relaxin levels decrease after child birth, muscles, ligaments tense up, and flexibility decreases.
What to Do to Improve Flexibility?
Warm up or stretching. A warm up session increases the temperature of the body with the purpose of improving blood flow to the whole body. Examples of warm up includes stationary bike, brisk walking, and jogging. For better results, warm up and stretch to improve flexibility.
Warm up Benefits.
- Improves the elasticity of muscles and ligaments.
- Reduce the risk of injury.
- Improve flexibility.
Remember…An effective warm up should last at least 5 minutes in length. The warm up produces and increase in body temperature, but it does not produce exhaustion or fatigue.
Types of Stretching
These following stretching are all effective techniques to improve flexibility.
Static Stretching include active (self stretch) and passive (partner stretch). For instance, a body part is held as soon as a muscle tension appears during static stretching .The stretch is held usually for 30 seconds and repeated two to four times.
Dynamic Stretching include active and ballistic stretching.
Active stretching. A part of the body goes to a full range of motion and the person repeats the stretch several times.
Ballistic stretching is a rapid or bouncing movement at the end of range. Ballistic stretch used to be very popular in the 1970’s. However, this type of stretching is no longer recommended because the bouncing movement predispose the body to more injury.
Pre-contraction Stretching is an active contraction of the muscle before stretching. Clearly, the most used pre-contraction stretching technique is proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF). This type of stretch was created by Doctor Herman Kabat in the 1950’s to treat patients with paralysis and muscular conditions. In addition, PNF are very effective to improve flexibility, muscle strength, and performance.
The most used PNF techniques to improve flexibility includes contract-relax and hold-relax. The muscle contracts at 75% of the maximal contraction. The contraction is held for 6 to 10 seconds, then relax, and repeat.
Hypopressive method was developed by Dr Caufriez in Belgium to help postpartum women to recover their core and pelvic floor muscles. Also, hypopressives involves breathing techniques and sequence of postures followed by a rest break in between to improve posture and flexibility.
This method focuses on aligning collagen fibers during the healing period or recovery with proper body alignment and postural awareness.
Why Hypopressive Improve Flexibility?
Hypopressive improve the flexibility of the upright posture muscles (longer stabilizer muscles). The following longer stabilizer muscles multifidus, diaphragm, transversus abominal, and obliquus internus stabilize and keep an upright posture of the spine. As a result, the diaphragm stabilize and control the posture during a hypopressive exercise.
What is the Best Time to Stretch?
It depends, if the goal is to have functional range of motion, then a Stretch will be effective after a good warm up. It could be after a warm bath, or shower, or after 5 minutes of physical activity.
If the goal is to improve muscle length, and range of motion, then stretches will be best done after working out as a part of the cool-down session. For instance, the body temperature will be elevated making the stretch more effective to gain flexibility.
The Best Stretching Exercises to Improve Flexibility
Add these stretches to your daily routine to improve flexibility, prevent back tightness, move freely and easily in your daily life.
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