Active Stretching
Recently, I was introduced to active stretching to perform before my workouts. I found out how off my balance is and how weak my hips and foot flexors are. What is active stretching? Active stretching is holding certain positions with the strength of your agonist (engaging/contracting) muscles without assistance. Active stretching increases flexibility, strengthens, and warms up the muscles targeted. For example, going into a side lunge and holding it there for a second or two and then repeating for a desired number of repetitions is active stretching. My agonist muscles get fatigued quite fast. I’m trying to build up to where I have complete control of the position while holding the proper form. I find that making focal points are very helpful. I’m also doing it barefoot so I can work out my feet. A lot of my instability comes from the imbalance and weakness of my foot flexors. For demonstrations of active stretching you can check out our Ideal Shape youtube video.