"Learning challenge s23w6: "I Love My Body /Static/Dynamic Stretches ".
Greetings and welcome to my blog. Am glad to be here for the final week of this learning challenge which is a prove of how I love my body. I am glad I participated in all the week and didn’t miss any. Even though I didn’t emerge winner in any of the weeks but I have indeed learnt valuable ways to show more love to my body.
This weeks emphasizes on the importance of stretching and the types of stretching which is dynamic and static stretching. Here is my homework task after careful study of the weeks requirement.
Static stretches
This type of stretching is normally carried out after exercising. As the name implies, this type of stretching is done while standing at a spot and the areas that are stretched are held for about 10-20 seconds without movement.
Dynamic stretches
This type is stretching is usually done before exercising. They are known as warm up stretches. There is flexibility in this type of stretching and movements of the body parts or target groups of muscles are involved. The areas being stretched are done for about 10 to twenty minutes before the focus is moved to other body parts.
Benefits of stretching
Stretching comes in as very beneficial to us because:
- it helps our body get ready for the strain the exercises would put on it before the actual exercise
- It’s helps our body muscles to relax thereby preventing soreness of the muscles after excercise
- It prevents injury
My stretch video
| Type | Duration |
|---|---|
| Dynamic stretches (warm up) | 1 minutes, 30 seconds |
| Static stretches | 3 minutes 30 seconds and above |
Explain each of the stretches you have done in your video and how you did them including the impact they have on you
Neck-Head
This stretches target the neck region and it’s done by tilting the neck to the one side and using the hand to apply pressure the side holding it down for about 10 seconds or more. This is repeated for the left, right, front and back side of the neck for the same number of times. This helps to relax the muscles around the neck region and made me feel better.
Shoulder and arms stretching
This stretch targets the shoulder region. This is involving a shrugging of the shoulder in a rotational way from front to back for about ten seconds and then from back to the front while the hands are on the hips.
Then the arm is crossed across the shoulder and the other arm is used to put pressure on it and held for about 10-20 seconds and it’s repeated for the other arm too.
The arm is also stretched to the back of the shoulder and the other arm crossed to put pressure on it and its repeated for the two arms. I felt pressure on my arms and some discomfort around my shoulder due to the stretching but it disappeared after the stretching.
Legs
For the legs stretching. I stood on one leg and folded my leg backwards while standing on the other leg. I did this for about 10 seconds and also did the reverse on the same leg by folding it forward below my chest region and held for about 10 seconds. I repeated this too for the other leg. This stretching helped me to enhance my stability and stamina on my legs.
Back-Hip and waist
I did the back hip and waist stretches by spreading my legs apart and bending forward, I did side stretches on both sides for about 10-20secods by swimming my arms to the sides of my legs.
I then pushed my arms in between my legs backwards and then standing up and putting my hands on my hips while pushing my hips forward. I bent again and repeat this process for about ten to twenty seconds. This put pressure on my waist regions but made for relief after the stretches.
At the end of these season, what is your determination with regards to regular exercises that shows that you love your body?
The learning challenge season is over but that is not the end of my excercise routine. For the love of my body, I have to keep doing this excercise routine from the week 1 till date that we have mearnt so that my body can really get used to them and not experience so much pain like I did during the week 3.
It’s not a time to quit but a time to put in more effort for the love of my body.
Thank you @ngoenyi and @genomil for an exciting season of adventure and learning and teach us to love our body. It’s been a beautiful ride.