Flex Is Forgiving

Well here I am enjoying another day of no school until noon. But today I feel like I have nothing to do since it is a rest day. I think I sense some frisbee to be played today. And I hope all of you feel like you are more fit then before, not only for being educated on what fitness really is, but taking the initiative to read my blog today. I mean hey it might only be two calories burned, but lets say you read 200 posts, and thats 400 calories. So after you read 200 posts, reward yourself with a mirror glance, because it would be worthless to destroy those burned calories with a snickers bar. If you did I might have to show up at your door and round house kick that cancerous crap out of your hand.

One of my not so favorites, because it is just not my forte...

FLEXIBILITY: The range of motion of one's body or appendages.

So, for all you ladies out there, I'm about 6 feet tall and love long walks on the beach while drinking pina col.... my bad, it's habit... Well all you ladies are naturally more flexible than us men, so you might have a few laughs at us while trying to work on it. But nonetheless, I will always add science to screw with everyone's head. So what are factors that affect flexibility? Simple, MUSCLES, JOINTS, SKIN. Yes, I said skin and it is a huge factor.

MUSCLES: What makes a muscle flexible? Well in simple terms, the more aligned and uniform your muscle fibers are, the more they want to stretch and give you a greater range of motion. So every time you stretch, you are pulling all of those fibers in the same direction to line them up. Now what happens when they arn't in the same direction? Well we call that a knot and they SUCK. Any pressure you put on that part of the muscle feels like a bruise the someone stuck a knife into. The fix is simple... just read on.

JOINTS: These are not very fun. Pretty much, a joint contains tendons and ligaments which are pretty much some of the stiffest things in the body. They don;t like to be flexed or stretched. But there are always ways around this. Strengthening the join can over time lengthen and strengthen the tendons and ligaments, giving a larger range of motion. So stretching does not do a whole lot, it does a little but strengthening is the true stuff for it.

SKIN: Okay for starters stop the crap talking about me being an idiot for putting this on here. It actually is a very important part of flexibility. What can happen after a good nights sleep, or a prolonged period of time without lots of movement in an area, mainly in the scapula area, the skin and muscle together can have high amounts of friction between them. As a result, you muscle and skin work against each other and you are stiffer than a phone pole.

THE FIXES :)--- So lets begin with some good stretching. Hold for about 20 to 30 seconds and get a nice pull on them all. The ideal time for this is after exercise when your muscle are at their weakest and prone to be shaped. Next, identify if you have any knots, which is any place on a muscle that is painful to touch. Once identified, grab a foam roller of death and isolate the muscle on the roller and start crying. it hurts like a son of a gun, but it is worth it. Next, strengthen your joints to lengthen those ligaments and tendons, because your joints are only as flexible as they are. I will post some videos of exercises that do this in a few days. Finally, if you go a period of time with little exercise or movement, grab a lacrosse or racquetball and place it under the main area being scapula and hips. Same thing as the foam roller, roll around, except this one doesn't hurt. it actually feels amazing.


Workout

Rest Day

Pop the Protein!!!