Stretching exercises are essentially very different from the conventional warming up exercises common with many body builders. If properly performed before the main workout, stretch exercises have been acclaimed by exercise physiologists as very helpful in relaxing the muscles and making them supple enough to handle intense weight training exercises. It is in this way that stretching exercises help prevent injuries in training.

Research conducted on a series of active athletes has indicated that stretch exercises when done as the first eaten on the workout schedule, help elongate the specific muscle group targeted by the body builder. That is why it is important that body builders should fall into the habit of performing adequate stretching exercises for every muscle group they intend to train for the day’s session. These stretching exercises should be performed immediately after the warm up exercises and therefore coming just before the core weight training exercises intended for the day.

Physiologists advise that the stretching exercises should also be repeated after the core weight exercises have been completed so as to amplify the neurological alertness of the muscle group, induce better blood flow and waste removal in the cells and eventually speed up the recovery of the muscle group after the intensive training. It is important that intense workouts are not performed with rigid and compact muscles, lest the tendons are hurt, tissues torn and fibers ripped out.

Essentially therefore, weight training exercise should only be done after the muscles have been subjected to adequate warm up and stretching exercises. This makes the target muscle group to be warm, flexible, tender, supple and loose. This delicate and agile sate is actually referred to in physiology as the single most pliable, injury-resistant state a body builder can be in. it is very hard too find a body builder who has an injury if he or she had performed his or her main workout course after adequate stretching exercises unless other negative factors are in play such as over-training, poor diet or using too much weight.

That is why some entrepreneuring professional body builders have even started to incorporate stretching exercises in between the workout sets of the core weight training exercises. This has proved very helpful for the muscle fanatics especially in promoting inter-muscular fluid circulation. Such intra-set stretching exercises also increase the flexibility and elasticity of the muscle fascia casing (tissue cover) that surrounds the anatomy of the muscle in the body. When elastic, the fascia casing absorbs shocks rather than getting injured. It expends when pressurized to do so and then returns to the normal shape once the pressure is released. This essentially amplifies the ability of a body builder to train hard without injuring the muscles.

When a body builder therefore incorporates stretching exercises in the workout regime, you are not only making the workout accrue more gains in terms of muscle mass but you are also preventing muscle injury and making your body ideally injury-prove. Perform adequate muscle specific stretching exercises also at the very end of a workout has some added advantage too since it helps eliminate virtually all the muscle soreness, in readiness for the next workout session.

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