5 Post-gym Stretches: with Composure Active

With many of us returning to the gym with little or no training over the last year, it is important that we stretch post-workout to:

• Maintain and improve the range of motion in our joints.
• Maintain and improve flexibility - Harvard uni say without stretching muscles shorten and tighten. When you next exercise they feel weaker because they can’t fully extend.
• Reduce muscle soreness post-training.
• Increase blood flow to muscles.
• Body and mind shift into the rest and digest mode of the nervous system. This is the system responsible for replenishing and rejuvenating our hard-working bodies
  
  

Composure Active's Top 5 post-gym stretches:

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1. Child’s pose and side stretch

Sink your hips back to your heels, reaching your arms forward. Then walk the hands to the right to feel a stretch down your left side. Walk the hands back through the centre and to the left to feel a stretch down your right side.

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2. Seated half-butterfly

Extend one leg long out to the side. Bend the other knee and pop your foot on the inside of the extended leg. Reach towards the leg that’s extended.

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3. Low lunge hip flexor stretch

Come to kneeling and with a bent knee, place one foot out in front. Tuck your tailbone under to keep your spine neutral as you lean into the front foot. Reach your arms over your head.

4. Supine twist

Lay on your back and roll both knees over to the side allowing your hip to lift. Keep your arms out wide with the shoulders staying on the ground.

5. Forward fold with chest opener

Clasp hands behind your back then fold forwards with soft knees. Allow your arms to come up and over your head.

Hannah from Composure Active offers a range of experiences on Heka including group personal training, meditation mentoring, yoga classes and 1-1 sessions.

Her classes encompass the best bits of yoga, meditation, pilates, sports rehab, sustainable fitness and psychology, to bring you the most holistic approach to wellbeing out there.

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