Developing Flexibility and Muscular Fitness

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Developing Flexibility and Muscular Fitness
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• At one time physical fitness programs consisted
  almost entirely of strength and flexibility
  exercises.
• Today, as the emphasis on balanced fitness grows,
  muscular strength, muscular endurance, and
  flexibility are assuming new importance.
• They can enhance the ability to perform daily
  tasks and athletic performance.
• Muscular fitness makes it easier to perform
  routine activities such as carrying groceries
  upstairs, lifting a child, and moving the couch.
  It is perhaps the most important fitness
  component for older adults because muscular
  fitness is essential for carrying out activities
  of daily living that help maintain functional
  independence.
• Flexibility enables us to reach, bend, twist, and
  perform movements without excessive tightness or
  stiffness.
• Enhanced muscular fitness allows us to perform
  vigorous activities with less risk of straining
  muscles or connective tissue, and so it is
  important in the prevention and rehabilitation of
  injuries.

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FLEXIBILITY

• The ability to move the joints through their full
  range is an asset that can be maintained
  throughout life.
• As children, we are naturally flexible, but as we
  age, flexibility tends to decrease.
• Disuse, injury, excessive body fat, and muscle
  imbalances are common factors in this loss of
  range of motion.
• You can maintain youthful flexibility by
  incorporating stretching into your regular
  workouts.
• The flexibility exercises in this section are
  grouped as follows a basic fitness flexibility
  program with exercises for joggers, walkers,
  aerobic dancers, cyclists, swimmers, and water
  exercisers and examples of PNF partner-assisted
  stretches.

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Benefits and Cautions

• Six main benefits can be gained from flexibility
  development
• may decrease the risk of injury. When tight
  muscles restrict the natural range of motion of a
  joint, the slightest unusual twist can cause a
  strain or pull, such as a strained hamstring.
  Inflexibility also is a precipitating factor in
  overuse injuries such as tendinitis, because
  inelastic muscles transfer excessive stress to
  even less pliable connective tissue.
• counteracts age-related declines in
  flexibility.
• It decreases aches and pains. Tight, inflexible
  muscles pull unevenly across joints, causing
  skeletal misalignment, poor posture, unnecessary
  fatigue, and muscle and joint pain. Stretching
  can alleviate these problems.
• It increases the ability to move freely and
  easily and to perform activities such as bending
  down to tie your shoes, scratching your back, and
  turning to look back as you are driving.
• It enhances athletic performance. In
  racquetball, golf, tennis, volleyball, and
  swimming, greater range of motion and ability to
  apply force through that range of motion can
  confer a winning edge.
• It feels good. Stretching reduces muscular
  tension, promoting relaxation.

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Types of Flexibility

• There are two basic types of flexibility static
  and dynamic.
• Static flexibility refers to the range of motion
  that can be achieved through a slow, controlled
  stretch. Static stretching techniques are those
  in which you slowly stretch a muscle to the point
  of tension and hold, such as in holding a sitting
  hamstring stretch. The stretching force is
  provided by gravity or the force of one limb
  pulling on another. When a muscle is stretched
  and held at a constant length, after a period of
  time there is a gradual loss of tension and
  muscle lengthening
• Dynamic flexibility is the range of motion
  achieved by quickly moving a limb to its limits.
  Dynamic stretching programs employ swinging or
  ballistic moves such as a high forward kick.
• While both types of stretching can increase
  flexibility, static stretching is preferred in
  health-related fitness programs because it is
  highly effective and carries little risk of
  muscle or joint strain.

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Principles of Flexibility Development

• Both types of flexibility are specific to the
  joint that is, flexibility in one leg does not
  guarantee identical flexibility in the other leg,
  and flexibility in the shoulders does not ensure
  flexibility in the lower back.
• An individual's flexibility range for a
  particular joint is not only specific but also
  partially genetically determined.
• Flexibility is determined by joint structure and
  elasticity of muscle and connective tissue.
• While you may not be able to change your
  genetics, you can improve your flexibility within
  your genetically determined range of motion.
• Flexibility exercises are only part of a balanced
  fitness program. The goal is to develop and
  maintain an adequate range of joint motion for
  ease of movement in your daily activities.

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• Flexibility gains are proportional to the
  overload applied to the frequency, intensity,
  and time (duration) of stretching.
• Frequency Stretch at least 2 to 3 days a week,
  daily if possible. Greater flexibility is
  produced by more frequent stretching.
• Intensity Low-intensity stretching is best.
  Progress at your speed.
• Stretching is not competitive.
• Flexibility changes from day to day, and on some
  days you might not be able to stretch as far as
  you did the day before.
• Stretch slightly beyond the normal range of
  motion, to the point of tension, and hold. Do not
  force a stretch.

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• Time The ACSM recommends a 10- to 30-second
  stretch, though holding up to 60 seconds in a
  cool-down stretch can increase flexibility
  retention.
• Repetitions At least four 10- to 30-second
  sustained stretches for each muscle group are
  recommended.

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Guidelines for Flexibility Development

• Everyone can benefit from flexibility. To
  maximize the results from the time invested,
  implement the following guidelines in your next
  stretching session
• Warm up before stretching.
• After warm-up, use stretching as preparation
  for activity.
• While some feel that stretching during warm-up
  decreases the risk of injury in the activity that
  follows, there is no evidence that this is true.
• Warm-up stretching is different from a planned
  program of stretching for general flexibility.
  Warm-up stretching can be limited to what is
  essential, avoiding overstretching. Stretch the
  muscle groups used in the activity, hold at the
  point of tension for 10 seconds, and do not push
  for flexibility increases. Any gains will be
  minimal due to the tightening effect of the
  workout that follows.

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Guidelines for Flexibility Development

• Stretch for flexibility during cool-down.
  Muscles are warmest and most elastic at this
  point. Stretching is easier. More permanent
  changes in musclelengthening occur with
  low-force, long-duration stretching if muscles
  are allowed to cool in a stretched position.
  Cooling muscles before releasing tension
  apparently causes muscle collagen (connective
  tissue), like stretched taffy, to stabilize
  toward its new stretched length.
• Stop at the point of tension, not pain.
  Stretching to the point of pain, or until muscles
  quiver, can risk overstretching injury.
• Stretch slowly and evenly, hold 10 to 30
  seconds and release slowly.
• Don't bounce. A slow sustained stretch is more
  effective.
• Incorporate 8 to 12 stretches into your
  program.

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Guidelines for Flexibility Development

• Pay particular attention to body areas that are
  least flexible and stretch them more often.
• Strive for muscle balance. When stretching
  muscle on one side of a joint, stretch those on
  the other side as well for example, if you
  stretch hamstrings, stretch quadriceps too.

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Flexibility exercises
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Other Programs for Enhancing Flexibility

• Tai chi and yoga are very old yet newly popular
  activities that can enhance flexibility and
  balance as well as reduce stress.

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Resistance Training Benefits and Cautions

• Resistance training can offer additional benefits
  whether your goal is health-related fitness or
  improved athletic performance
• Muscle is active, high-metabolic tissue, while
  fat is storage tissue. Resistance training
  increases muscle mass, which increases the rate
  at which you burn calories 24 hours a day, not
  just during the workout. This makes weight
  control easier

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Injury Prevention

• Aerobic exercises such as jogging and aerobic
  dance have the potential to cause injury through
  repetitive, forceful impact against unyielding
  surfaces
• Strong, flexible muscles and connective tissue
  can better withstand the stress of many forceful
  landings during a workout. When ligaments,
  tendons, muscle, and bone are strengthened
  through muscular exercise, the risk of injury is
  decreased.

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Psychological Benefits

• While many people begin an exercise program to
  improve appearance, many other less visible but
  equally important effects may result. Benefits in
  the emotional dimension of wellness from regular
  exercise include feeling better, decreased
  stress, decreased depression, and enhanced
  self-esteem and self-confidence.

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Social Benefits

• In addition to offering physical and
  psychological benefits, lifting with a partner or
  friend offers social benefits.
• There are many more opportunities for
  conversation and interaction when you work out
  with someone than when you watch a movie.
• Benefits at Any Age Regardless of your age, you
  can benefit from resistance training. It is
  untrue that loss of strength is inevitable with
  age or that older people cannot gain strength.
• While the typical sedentary individual can lose
  up to 30 percent of his or her muscle mass
  between the ages of 20 and 70, this loss is more
  from atrophy due to disuse rather than from aging
  alone.
• Adequate levels of muscular strength are
  particularly important to older adults to
  maintain their functional independence and
  quality of life.
• Several studies including people in their 70s,
  80s, and 90s participating in resistance training
  have shown that they increased muscle mass, more
  than doubled their strength, and improved their
  functional mobility and ability to perform daily
  living activities.

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Disadvantages and Cautions

• Although resistance training has many benefits,
  it does have disadvantages.
• Resistance training is not a complete exercise
  program because it does not develop
  cardiorespiratory endurance.
• As in any physical activity, injury is possible
  if you are careless or ignore safety procedures.
  You may have trouble accessing equipment.
• Also, you can expect some mild muscle soreness
  during the first week of the program.

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Muscle Function

• Muscles are made of individual muscle fibers
  bound together and sheathed in connective tissue.
  They end in a tendon that connects the muscle to
  a bone.
• Resistance training increases the size and
  strength of both fiber types as well as their
  ability to exert force. Muscles cannot expand and
  push.
• Movement is produced as muscle contracts,
  shortens, and pulls on bones across a joint.
• As a muscle on one side of a bone contracts,
  muscles on the other side must relax to allow
  movement to occur. The contracting muscle that
  initiates movement is called the agonist.
• Biceps curl demonstrating muscle function.

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Muscle Fiber Recruitment

• When a muscle contracts, only the number of
  muscle fibers required for that momentary effort
  will shorten.
• Individual muscle fibers cannot contract
  partially. They are working as hard as possible
  or not at all. This is called the all-or-nothing
  principle.
• On each subsequent contraction, more fibers must
  be recruited to continue to lift the same weight.
  After several muscle contractions, enough fibers
  are fatigued that the muscle temporarily can no
  longer generate the same effort in what is called
  temporary muscular failure.
• Muscle fibers increase strength only if they are
  stimulated by intensity of effort.
• If your goal is to develop maximal muscular
  strength, try to recruit, or activate, as many
  muscle fibers as possible by working a muscle to
  a state of temporary muscular failure.
• If you are working for health-related fitness
  levels, a less intense effort is adequate.

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Muscle Atrophy and Hypertrophy

• Muscles adapt to the load placed on them. When
  the load increases over time, muscular strength
  and endurance improve. When muscles are not used,
  they grow weaker, stiffen, and atrophy, or shrink
  in size.
• A dramatic example of muscle atrophy occurs when
  a person has an injured limb in a cast for
  several weeks. When the cast is removed, the
  muscles of the affected limb are noticeably
  smaller. Increasing amounts of exercise over time
  are necessary to rebuild muscle strength, size,
  and flexibility.
• When muscles are stimulated by an increased
  workload, they grow stronger and muscle fibers
  experience hypertrophy, or increase in size.
• This increase occurs in both men and women and is
  proportional to muscle mass. The average man has
  about twice the muscle mass of the average woman,
  and so hypertrophy in men is more pronounced.

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Gender Differences

• Some women worry that they will develop big
  shoulders or massive, masculine musculature
  because of weight training.
• This myth is reinforced by televised images of
  women's body-building competitions.
• Be assured that shoulder width, like hip width,
  is influenced by genetics and that significant
  muscle gains require hours of strenuous weight
  lifting for many months.
• Men have a greater potential for muscle
  hypertrophy than women do because men have higher
  levels of sex hormones such as androgen and
  testosterone, which promote muscle growth.
• Some of the strongest women athletes are
  gymnasts, who have very feminine physiques.
• Weight training is also popular with TV and
  movie stars who exercise to maintain a fit, toned
  appearance and help control weight. Be assured
  that massive muscles don't occur by accident or
  with a 20- to 30-minute muscle-toning workout
  twice a week.

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Types of Resistance Training Programs

• Two basic types of muscular exercise are static
  (isometric) and dynamic (isotonic). Different
  resistance programs have been developed for each
  type.

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Static (Isometric) Exercise

• Static (isometric) exercise is exercise in which
  the muscle contracts but does not change length
  and little or no movement occurs
• However, these exercises are not widely used
  because resistance is applied at only one point
  in your range of motion, and thus strength
  development is limited.
• Also, it is difficult to know how much force is
  being exerted, and so strength gains are not as
  easy to observe as they are when equipment is
  being used.
• However, static exercises can be useful in
  strengthening muscles after an injury, when
  dynamic movement would be painful or even
  increase injury.

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Dynamic (Isotonic) Exercise

• Dynamic (isotonic) exercise is exercise in which
  the muscle contracts and shortens and movement
  occurs.
• Most daily activities, such as pushing, pulling,
  and lifting, are dynamic.
• Dynamic exercise programs can be done with free
  weights, exercise machines, elastic resistance,
  or calisthenics such as crunches and push-ups.
  Advantages of dynamic exercise are that it
  strengthens through a full range of motion, the
  load is measurable, and a variety of isotonic
  programs are available.

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Dynamic exercise involves two types of muscle
contractions concentric and eccentric

• In a concentric contraction, a muscle shortens as
  it overcomes resistance. For example, a weight is
  lifted as the biceps contract during the lifting
  phase of a biceps curl.
• Eccentric contraction occurs when a muscle
  lengthens and contracts at the same time,
  gradually allowing a force to overcome muscular
  resistance for example, the biceps contract
  eccentrically during the lowering phase of a
  biceps curl.
• Eccentric contraction is a beneficial component
  of strength development because it makes up half
  of the muscular effort.
• The same muscles are involved in eccentric and
  concentric contractions, and so lowering should
  be done in a smooth, controlled manner for
  maximal benefit and to prevent potential injury
  from dropping the weight

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Principles of Resistance Training

• Strength gains are proportional to the load
  applied and the frequency and intensity of
  effort. Basic principles of resistance training
  include progressive overload, specificity, and
  recovery.

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Progressive Overload

• Progressive overload is the most important
  principle of resistance training.
• To stimulate a muscle to increase strength or
  endurance, it must gradually be overloaded or
  forced to work at a higher than normal effort.
• Either the number of lifts (repetitions)
  performed or the amount of weight (load or
  resistance) must gradually be increased or
  recovery time between exercises must be
  decreased. Increasing the number of repetitions
  or decreasing rest increases muscular endurance.
  Increasing the weight lifted increases strength.
• General programs increase load and repetitions
  until a desired maintenance goal is reached. You
  must exercise two to three times a week to
  improve muscular fitness. Significant strength
  gains require at least 8 consecutive weeks of
  training.
• To maintain strength, one intense workout is
  adequate for health fitness. Athletes will need
  to train at least twice a week to maintain
  fitness in the off-season.

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Specificity

• The speed of contraction, range of motion, amount
  and type of resistance, and number and type of
  exercise are a few of the variables that
  determine the results of strength training.
• If you desire a specific result, such as an
  increase in muscle mass, your program must be
  designed and executed to produce that result.

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Recovery

• Exercise stimulates a muscle to take in more
  protein and nutrients and undergo changes that
  increase its ability to contract forcefully.
• After a workout, you will be weaker, not
  stronger, due to fatigue. Improvement occurs
  during recovery, which gives the muscle fibers
  time to repair and grow.
• This requires more recovery time than for the
  cardiorespiratory system. Strength workouts are
  best done with 2 to 3 days of rest between
  sessions to allow recovery and improvement to
  occur.
• Lifting may be done more frequently, using a
  split routine with the upper body one day and the
  lower body the next

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Guidelines for Resistance Training Programs
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Safety Guidelines for Resistance Training
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Major muscles of the body.
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Basic Resistance Training Programs
There are many types of resistance-training
programs. The type of program you select will
depend on your goals and the type of equipment
(if any) you plan to use
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Free weight exercises
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• There are many ways to develop muscular strength
  and endurance. While weight training is an
  excellent program, it is not always convenient.
• The abdominal and core strengthening, hip and
  thigh, and upper-body programs require no special
  equipment. Partner exercises add a social
  dimension to a workout.
• Elastic resistance produces results without bulky
  equipment and is easy to take with you for
  exercise on a trip.
• While weights add intensity to a workout, they
  are not always necessary when the goal is to
  shape and tone.
• Muscles develop firmness by working against a
  resistance, and that resistance can be your body
  weight.
• These programs emphasize muscular endurance
  rather than strength by increasing time in
  contraction or reps. .

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Elastic resistance exercises.