Ambassador Blog by Lotta
Hi there Fit Girls! I’m Lotta and I’m a Fit Girl, because my life is all about health! In my professional life I’m a physiotherapist, health coach and model, which means I know a lot about exercising and healthy food. Besides that, I’m a figure skater and my healthy lifestyle helps me to perform my very best during training and competitions. I always try to get out the best in me!
But lets get started: Flexibility! It’s one of the base motricity skills, which also includes endurance, speed, co-ordination and strength. A good flexibility makes you perform better in sports because you have a better range of motion in your joint movements and this has a great influence on coordination as well!
Flexibility is defined by two things: the first part is the range of motion of your joints. This is mainly genetically determined, which means you only can influence this a little bit. The other part is the length of your muscles, this is also partly genetically determined, but there is also a big part that you can influence all by yourself!
The best way to increase your flexibility is by static stretching. Preferably after your work-out, because researches have shown that stretching before your work-out could decrease your strength by 30%! Besides that stretching after your work-out helps to prevent injuries. The stretch impulse in your muscles helps to build up new & strong muscle fibers, this makes your muscles less vulnerable for injuries.
When you do your stretches, make sure you maintain every stretch for about 30 second in each position. Stretching always means that you move the muscle to the opposite side as the muscle function. For example: your Qceps function is straighten your leg, so you should stretch it by bending your leg. Try to do stretches for every muscle area and focus on the same areas as the muscles you trained during your work-out (legs on leg day etc.). Stretching is a very important part of your work-out and recovery process, don’t skip it!
