Questions and Answers

Q: I have a limited amount of time to stretch and warm-up before I exercise in the morning. Is it really worth getting up extra early for?

Absolutely. When you first get up in the morning, your muscles are tight. In fact, at that time, your muscles are generally about 10% shorter than their normal resting lengths. As you move around, they stretch to their normal lengths. When you start to exercise, your muscles stretch even more, up to about 10% longer than their normal resting length.... that's a total percent change of 20%.

Basic physics tells us that muscles work more efficiently when they are longer; meaning they can exert more force with less effort. Longer muscles are also much less prone to injury. So the extra time spent warming up your muscles before a training run or race is worth the effort in improved efficiency and decreased likelihood of getting injured.

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