If you can\u2019t touch your toes without majorly bending your knees, that\u2019s a sure sign you could benefit from doing hamstring stretches. But even if you can touch your toes easily, you should still be stretching your hamstrings every day. According to personal trainers, daily hamstring stretches are something literally everyone can benefit from. That means whether you sit all day or you live a pretty active life, you should be doing them.<\/p>\n
Not sure where to start? We\u2019ve got you covered.<\/p>\n
Why Hamstring Stretches Are Important<\/p>\n
While you may think tight hamstrings are a result of overuse (which is true), sitting all day can cause them to tighten up too.<\/p>\n
\u201cSitting all day can lead to issues like poor blood flow and tight hamstrings because your knees stay bent, while the top of your hamstrings are stretched due to your hips being flexed,\u201d says Justin Kraft, CPT, a certified personal trainer and the founder of Aspire 2 More Fitness<\/a> in Denver, Colorado.<\/p>\n Jyima Ofori-Atta, CPT<\/a>, a certified personal trainer in Los Angeles, agrees. \u201cWhen you\u2019re sitting all day, your hamstrings are constantly in a flex position, which can make them tight as well as weak,\u201d he says. Spending the majority of the time sitting without stretching your hamstrings can lead to pain that extends beyond the lower half of your body. \u201cMost people don\u2019t realize that the issues caused by this can go far beyond just your legs and into your shoulders, back, and neck. Your body is a kinetic chain and sitting can make many muscle groupings overactive or underactive which contributes to range of motion and muscle inhibitions,\u201d Kraft says.<\/p>\n Certain types of workouts can also lead to hamstring tightness. Ofori-Atta says runners are especially prone because of the continuous, repetitive demand running places on the hamstrings. Certified personal trainer and Jack City Fitness<\/a> founder Marshall Weber, CPT, says that people who do HIIT workouts<\/a> or lift weights<\/a> can also experience hamstring tightness. \u201cHIIT workouts are great, but the amount of tension that it puts on the legs makes it crucial to stretch on a regular basis,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n When you take the time to stretch your hamstrings, all three experts say that you\u2019ll be protecting your body from injury and will also take your fitness game to a new level. \u201cIf you watch a lot of sports like I do, you notice it being one of the most common injuries you see. As an athlete, it could cost you weeks or even months to recover from this. In my own training and with my clients, I have been able to substantially improve performance along with preventing injuries by putting a heavy focus on hamstrings,\u201d Kraft says, adding that he\u2019s trained runners who have drastically improved their times by prioritizing hamstring stretches.<\/p>\n 7 Hamstring Stretches to Do At Home<\/p>\n Just like anything else when it comes to fitness (and health, and life in general, really), when it comes to hamstring stretches, Ofori-Atta says that consistency is key; if you don\u2019t make it a regular habit, you\u2019re not going to benefit all that much. He recommends spending 10 minutes every day moving through some hamstring stretches.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you can\u2019t touch your toes without majorly bending your knees, that\u2019s a sure sign you could benefit…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":195641,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[49,48,407,84,18549,343,406,12365],"class_list":{"0":"post-347439","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fitness","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fitness","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-textbelowcentergridwidth","13":"tag-web","14":"tag-wellness","15":"tag-working-out"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=347439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/347439\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=347439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=347439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=347439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}