Our Top 5 Post Run Stretches
Be honest here. Do you always spend the ten minutes post a run working on your flexibility effectively? I would have a guess that probably most do not spend enough quality time maintaining their range of movement in the muscles they have been using during running.
In an ideal world we would all spend 15 minutes on our warm up and pre run activation work, preparing our body for the challenge ahead. Especially if we have spent all day sitting at a desk, which is clearly not ideal for running preparation. You can then enjoy your training session.
Here we take you through the 5 key stretches or mobility work to complete post your running session, and it shouldn\’t matter if you are completing an interval, hill session, tempo run or an easy run. Your body still needs help to maintain your mobility.
It is not just a matter of completing the stretch, which we see so often. Going through the motion of stretching is better than nothing at all however if we are going to spend the time helping our body recover from the training session we should try to be as effective as possible.
The 5 key stretches for runners target;
1. Calf – both the bigger calf muscle but also the deeper one too
2. Quads – the front of the thigh so often an issue from sitting at desks all day in a shortened position.
3. Hamstrings – back of the thigh, allowing us the range to stride our for speed sessions
4. Gluts – along with the deeper piriformis allowing good running form
5. Posterior Chain – again including the gluts, posterior ITB along with your thoracic spine region too.
Build A Better Runner