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Jeremy Singh

Don’t forget to do THIS one thing after your run

Welcome back to the GO FOR A RUN, the newsletter that’ll stretch your body and your mind.

Growing up, I was a super active kid:

  • Baseball
  • Basketball
  • Riding my bike
  • Endless games of tag

When a ball was kicked across the street, I was the kid that would go chasing.

I was running all the place.

And then I’d come home and collapse on the couch in front of the TV with a big bag of cookies.

I kept that pattern when I started running:

  • Go for a run
  • Come home
  • Sit down (eat cookies)

You might do the same. After all, who doesn’t enjoy chilling out (with cookies) after exercise.

The good news is this email isn’t going to tell you off for reaching into the cookie jar Reader.

But here’s the problem:

You’re sitting down too to eat them too fast.

The problem with sitting down straight away is your muscles, tendons and joints will be crazy tight.

If you struggle with:

  • Pain
  • Soreness
  • Tightness

The reason is probably because you’re not doing a post exercise stretch.

This is going to hold you back because if you don’t do it, it will impact your:

  • Flexibility
  • Range of motion
  • Physical and cognitive performance

Here’s a simple stretch routine to help.

How to stretch after your run

We stretch in two ways:

  1. With momentum
  2. Without momentum

Here’s the skinny:

The first type is called dynamic and ballistic stretching. This is where you continually move through the range of motion letting momentum stretch you to (dynamic) and beyond (ballistic) the range of motion.

The problem with using momentum is you can push the limbs too far, causing injury. The best time for momentum stretching is before exercise or sports because you’ll get a little bit bigger range of motion, warm up your body, and kickstart the nervous system.

The second type is static stretching where you hold the stretch at the end range of motion.

The mistake most people make is you don’t need to push the static stretch hard. Stretching isn’t meant to hurt.

You get most of the result from doing a 30-40% stretch without pain and you don’t run the risk of injury.

The best time to do static stretches is after exercise (not before).

And here are a couple of quick tips:

  • Be warmed up
  • Hold each stretch for 30-60 seconds
  • Stretch 3-5 days/week for a total of 5 min. per muscle group

Stretching might be one of the most boring parts of your running routine, but the results sure as hell aren’t.

And if you get really good, you can entertain party guests by putting your feet behind your ears.

But if do you find it boring, put on your favorite music or watch some TV while you do it.

But most importantly make sure it gets done and I’ll see you next time for the GO FOR A RUN newsletter.

Jeremy