I’m very bad at doing stretching exercises. Maybe it’s because I remember reading a book by a cyclist who said stretching wasn’t necessary. However, during a week off cycling, I had a painful experience.
During the tight, I woke up with my calf muscle suddenly tightening, it was very painful for a moment. Then for the next two days it felt like the muscles had pulled. It was uncomfortable to walk. I assumed the calf muscle had tightened due to training, then when I stopped training it couldn’t release the tension gently, so I had this feeling of ‘pulling’ a muscle.
A good stretch for a calf muscle is to stand against a wall a bit like you are trying to push over a wall then stretch the calf muscle below the knee down the bottom leg with one legged fixed and the other leg bent at the knee.
calf stretch
The other very important stretch is for the hamstrings. There are different ways of doing this. But one way to stretch the hamstrings is to lie down and pull one leg towards you.
Hamstring stretch
Another stretch can be seen here at BBC suffolk
It is said that the popular stretch akin to touching your toes, is not the best way to stretch your hamstrings.
These two I think are the most important stretches. But, there are others worth doing such as quad stretches.
When stretching it is important.
- Your muscles are warm
- You don’t over do it. You should feel a stretch but should never be painful. It is best to hold for 10-20 second than repeated short stretches.
- It is worth getting proper qualified advice as well.
I wasn’t aware the “touch your toes” stretch wasn’t great for hamstrings, thanks for the tip.
Another stretch I personally find very useful is for hips: sit on the floor with your back against a wall and legs out in front of you; keeping your back straight, lift one knee (leg bent) up to your chin and squeeze the leg towards your chest and off to the side; swap and repeat for the other leg. I feel it in the hip and across the front of my thigh.