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| Stretching |
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So your body’s nicely warmed
up from the skipping, but that’s not the end of the warm up as we need to do
some stretches and exercises to make sure that your body is ready for
training. Proper preparation is important to minimise the risk of injury. A
cold inflexible muscle will tear a lot easier than a warm and stretched
muscle. The skipping will quite literally have raised your body temperature,
making your muscles more receptive to stretching. It’s not a good idea to
stretch cold muscles. The stretching will ensure that your muscles are ready
to cope with the dynamics of training, whilst the exercises are designed to
get the joints moving freely. The skipping will already have loosened up
some of the joints, but we need to make sure that we’ve loosened up all the
ones you are going to be using.
The exercises and stretches cover the whole body and work down from head to toes starting:
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Head and neck |
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Shoulders, arms, hands and upper back |
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Hips and middle back |
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Lower back, legs and feet |
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In general the exercises tend to be more dynamic and combine loosening with stretching, rotating the arms whilst keeping them straight, not only loosens up the arm and shoulder joints, but also stretches some of the muscles in the upper back. Stretches tend to be static and more specific, adopting an upright sitting position on the floor, with the legs apart and then slowly leaning forward from the hips stretches a number of muscles (hamstrings, abductors, gluteals and Lower back), but does little to loosen any joints. |
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After completing the stretches and exercises you’ll be ready for the training and at the end of the session you should be slightly more supple, your strength will have improved as will your stamina. You probably won’t notice any difference. The changes will happen slowly, but as you progress you’ll find that you can kick higher and punch harder. You’ll probably feel just as tired, but instead of being exhausted after ten minutes you’re now going the full two hours. If you want to know more about stretching and stretches then download the "STRETCHING AND FLEXIBILITY: Everything you never wanted to know" by Brad Appleton. It is the best reference that I’ve found on the web and probably beats most that you’ll find in any bookstore. More than that though . . . it’s free. But please adhere to his permission notice, which is on the first page of the document, as below in green font:
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Version: 1.42, Last Modified 98/06/10
Copyright © 1993-1998 by Bradford D. Appleton Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this document at no charge or at a charge that covers reproducing the cost of the copies, provided that the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies. The file is a 157K text file, simply click on stretches.txt to open it and then save it onto your PC. |
| Introduction | |||||
| Thai or Kick Boxing |
