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We all know that to lose weight, we have to eat well and work out. But you might be surprised to learn that there are some easy ways to take advantage of those healthy habits and take them one step further, with minimal effort.
There are a few very good reasons why you should be stretching after every workout to maximize your weight loss potential. So if you don’t stretch after exercising, here’s why you should start to now.
We asked Personal Trainer, Jay Soriano, and we were surprised to learn that stretching after working out has a lot more to it than you might expect. Soriano said that there are a few ways to speed up weight loss through stretching, but they work more indirectly.
He explained that you have to take advantage of the post-workout state in the following ways:
EPOC (Excessive Post-Oxygen Exercise Consumption):
“In other words, after your vigorous workout, your heart rate is still up, instead of jumping into your car to go back home, spend another 10-15 minutes stretching, which can help with recovery.”
Recovery: “There are many studies that show that stretching can improve recovery, which in turn, can help drive progressive overload for your main lifts - which we know is the primary driver for hypertrophy.”
And, lastly, he added: “If you're flat out beat by the end of your workout, consider stretching between sets. One recent 2020 research review indicated that subjects who stretched their calves between calf raises saw better hypertrophy than the ones who did not.”
