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Keeping the Thing in your Swing (stretching)
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In my request for questions I was given a wonderful question from Ben. He asked me to give some advice on maintaining flexibility to prevent injury. This is a subject that can benefit everyone, man or woman, young or old. As I mentioned in a previous article, we have nature working against us as we age. The older we get, the shorter our muscles become. This is not a big deal for most of us. This shortening of muscles only bothers us whenever we over exert ourselves on a rare basis. But for some of us it can be debilitating because it can greatly limit the activities that you enjoy.
Stretching becomes increasingly more important as we get older to maintain our activity level. I have a patient in my office that comes in for maintenance care about once a month. He is a competitive trail bike racer and avid hockey player. He is in very good physical shape and when he first started coming to see me we worked on his flexibility and stretches he can do both before and after physical activity. He still has occasional aches and pains and discomforts, however his ability to perform athletically has improved significantly.
As I mentioned he was already in very good physical condition when he presented to the office. My main goal with this patient was improving his flexibility to allow him to maintain his level of performance. Whenever he comes into the office I usually do a passive hamstring stretch for him, basically this means that I am doing the work of the stretch but active stretches can be just as effective. When stretching the bulk of the stretches should be focused on the legs and core simply because most of the movements we do incorporate muscles from these groups.
Another important aspect of stretching is to remember that the muscle you are stretching is usually actually more than just one. In the case of your hamstrings there are actually three separate muscles that combine to make up your hamstring, in your thigh it is four (quadriceps muscle) and in the calf are only two. This is important because whenever you stretch these muscles you have to be sure you are stretching each of the individual muscles of these groups to get the most benefit.
The most important group of muscles to stretch are the hamstrings due to their attachment to the hip area. 
Start off by bending at the waist and keeping the knees straight and attempting to touch your toes. This should elicit a stretching (even a burning sensation in the back of your legs) and hold for an 8 count. Return to a standing position and repeat three or four times. Try to go a little further each time and do not bounce, just bend forward and reach as far as you can. Next cross your right foot over your left and bend forward repeat the same steps then cross your left over right and repeat. These three stretches help isolate each of the important hamstring muscles to give you the best stretch possible.
In tomorrows update I will give you a breakdown of stretches for all over the body to give you the best stretches for each part of your body to keep that thing in your swing!!
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