Why should we stretch exactly 7 min after swimming?
Many swimmers swim in the morning or late in the evening, and most of the time, they just don’t take the time to do so. We have 1 hour to exercise, more or less, and we need to finish our 3k and go to work or rush home.
People say that time is money and we agree: in a 75 min workout we need to feel our body, burn fat, meet people, strengthen our muscles, who has time for stretching?
In this article we won’t talk about how to stretch but why; besides the fact that stretching can protect you lower back, build your muscles and improve your swimming speed and swimming technique.
Experts say you need to stretch at least 30 min or 2 hours a week and they are right, if you have the time!!, Olympic swimmers stretch and loosen their body by massage, ice bath, yoga, 2 hours each day, but they live, speak & think swimming.
So the big question is how to stretch, as less time as possible, but be affective and when I mean affective I mean how to keep improving my swimming, and protect my body.
In order to answer that question we tried a few options on swimmers: 2min, 7 min, 10 min, 15 min, 20min and 30 min after workout, the results were the same: when a swimmer has 1 hour or 1:20, and I’m not talking about Saturday or Sunday when we have all the time we want.
Swimmers that stretched 2 min soon enough stopped stretching at all, 15 min was too much because they’d rather swim, and I’m not talking about 20 or 30 min, some of them just didn’t stay at all or said they didn’t really need stretching.
7 min was the exact time that swimmers who did stay after training had improved their swimming technique and speed. They also improved their flexibility dramatically.
To sum up, stretching is very important. But if you are not a professional swimmer or athlete, try to dedicate minimum time to it, but be affective.
Stretching after a swimming workout is very important. And doing so for 7-10 min is more important than swimming 300-500 meters more. When stretching exactly 7 min after each workout, you will enjoy your swimming even more, you will protect your lower back, float better and if you swim WEST, you will enjoy the WEST way to swim.
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