Day 78 of 84 Days of 84 Ribbons: Stretching

Dance are often on a quest for greater and greater flexibility. To that end, they may  actually go too far and create weakness instead of strength in what they do. Here are two new suggestions about stretching that all of us should heed.

1. Don’t hold static stretches before warming up.

If you hold a static stretch for more than 30 seconds before you warm up you may damage your ligament and tendons. Instead, keep the muscles moving, flowing from one position to  another. If you force your use of your muscles without warming them up, you may injury your joints.

2.  Don’t isolate hamstring warm up from other muscle warm ups.

Warm up your total body evenly. The barre exercises are intended for that purpose so be patient. Save the deep positions and extreme stretches for later in the class.