Increase joint range of motion

If you want to not only improve your fitness level but also increase your range of motion, you will want to get yourself on are regular stretching routine.

Increasing your range of motion has a number of benefits. First, for those activities that require a lot of continuous movement, the better able your limbs can move through their full path, the more fluid the movement will be.

Secondly, increasing your range of motion will help to prevent injuries. There are times when you might get yourself into a very awkward and unnatural position. If the body is pushed too far, injuries result. Therefore, the more movement your body can tolerate, the less chance you will become hurt.

The third reason why you should work on this aspect of physical fitness is because it will also allow you to grow stronger. The more you can move the muscle fibres while acting against a resistance of some sort, the stronger they will grow. For those who are heavy into weight lifting, this obviously has very promising benefits.

Always be sure you warm-up before starting to perform your stretching though as you want the joints to be loose enough that no additional stress is being experienced. You should only feel a slight muscle pull while performing the exercises and at no point should you experience a pain running through the bones.

So make sure at the end of your next workout, you dedicate some time to this aspect of your training. It doesn't have to take very long at all; just ten to fifteen minutes three or four times a week can lead to very noticeable results.