Staying Fit: Flexibility Essentials

By Dr. Mary Riggin, LAC,  FitFM - Family Wellness

In order to achieve the best results with any health program, good flexibility is essential.

A lack of flexibility can lead to muscle tightness, back pain, neck pain, achy and painful joints, muscle spasms and knots, and numbness.  These physical symptoms can greatly affect your health program and quality of life.

To better understand the importance of flexibility, it’s helps to understand structural anatomy.  Our bones are held together by soft tissue: the muscles, tendons (attaches muscle to bone) and ligaments (attaches bone to bone.)  If you didn’t have soft tissue, you’d be a bag of bones on the floor.  The muscles interconnect in various layers to create a complex pulley system that allows us to move in all the various ways that we do.

Good flexibility can be achieved and maintained by incorporating a daily stretching routine, and attending a 1 hour class 2 -3 times per week.  The more flexible you are the better your health program results will be.  Think about all the little muscles that have to twist and turn every time you move.  Stretching and plenty of water will help maintain the elasticity of your tissue and keep you flexible.

If you’re experiencing aches or pains, stretching may not be enough and could aggravate your condition.  Pain medications block pain, they don’t promote healing and they have side effects.  For thousands of years, the ancient medical art of acupuncture and Oriental Medicine has been used to promote healing and rejuvenate the body.  It has proven to be an effective treatment for many conditions, with no side effects.  Because it promotes the flow of blood and oxygen to the cells, and promotes a release of endorphins (the body’s natural pain killer) even chronic pain conditions respond well.

To keep you at your best, make sure you stretch daily, stay hydrated (with water) and stay flexible.  If you’re in pain, get some help and turn your health around today!

• < Prev
• Next >