I think its becasue we need to losen up our muscles but not to sure
2006-11-15 03:44:16 · 6 answers · asked by greenbenuk 2 in Health ➔ Diet & Fitness
Huh?
2006-11-15 03:45:42 · answer #1 · answered by kcbranaghsgirl 6 · 1⤊ 2⤋
OK, flexibility is quite a complicated and surprising subject. For example, you may be interested to know that your level of flexibility has nothing to do with the length of your muscles!
Put as simply as I can, your body has a "flexibility memory." There is a short-term "flexibility memory" that is easily reset and a long-term "flexibility memory" that is much harder to reset.
When you sleep at night you are in a relaxed, neutral position and generally none of your joints are flexed to anywhere near their limit. You lie like this for 8 hours or so and this resets you short-term "flexibility memory" to a less flexible level. So when you wake up you feel stiff.
The first thing you do, of course, is stretch out all your muscles and this resets the short-term "flexibility memory" to its long-term "flexibility memory" level and you're back to normal again.
Anyone who does an exercise that requires great flexibility; gymnastics, yoga, martial arts (what I did), etc will find that if they do a full stretch routine in the morning, they will reset their short-term "flexibility memory" for the whole day and will not need to stretch again before starting their exercise in the evening. They'll need to warm-up, of course, but they should find they'll be able to reach maximum flexibility without any stretching exercises.
Try it!
2006-11-15 18:12:30 · answer #2 · answered by amancalledchuda 4 · 1⤊ 0⤋
You haven't used the muscles all night so they have a build up of lactic acid in them. This makes them ache and feel stiff. Stretching relieves the ache, and gentle exercise gets the muscles working again.
2006-11-15 11:49:09 · answer #3 · answered by Anonymous · 2⤊ 0⤋
The first thing an animal does when it wakes up is to stretch, so it must be a natural reaction, although I cannot do it, my legs are to small.
2006-11-15 11:56:07 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
It gets the blood and the lymph moving around the body.
2006-11-15 11:54:28 · answer #5 · answered by Ricecakes 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its a natural reaction to having been in a static postion while asleep, if you notice, cats do this to.
2006-11-16 05:38:41 · answer #6 · answered by carol g 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋