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Stretching is essential to stay away from injuries. Your body and muscles need to warm up before starting a high intensity running. About 60-70% of runners suffer from injury every year. Stretch your body to an extent that the muscles may feel the tension without pain.

Stretching can help to warm up the body muscles. To some it is a great way to prevent exercises. Many youngsters fail to understand the importance of stretching until they reach the age when they are susceptible to more injuries. If you are one among those who believe that stretching is not really essential before running, think again. On a cold day, your vehicles needs to be warmed up before driving. The same even applies to your body. So to gain easy momentum while running, a pre stretch exercise regime is essential.

All types of stretches should be performed atleast 3 times before running.Do stretching exercises involving every body part and perform each stretches for 10 seconds. Stretches can increase your fitness level greatly and it can even treat a previous injury. Leg stretching increases the flexibility of legs and accelerates the capacity of body to perform. Without stretching, the muscles will be cold. Muscle fibers will be flexed like a bundle of threads tied together. Proper stretches warms up the muscles. Unstreched flexed muscles cannot function while your body is in motion. Overall, your body may not be able to run based on your overall ability resulting in a lesser performance.

A 15-20 minutes of stretching before running would be ideal. Different types of stretching exercises to be performed before running can be viewed at:
http://familydoctor.org/onl ine/famdocen/home/healthy/phys ical/sports/147.html
Hamstring muscles and other muscles of abdomen,thighs and and hips must be geared up before running.

If you are a beginner who is trying to take up running exercise, you must perform basic stretches for hamstrings, calf muscles and for your quads to avoid a muscle pull. Remember, stretching is the key to avoid injuries.

Reference:Muscle Flexibility is Crucial to Strength and Fitness
by Barrett Niehus, AllTrainers.com
http://www.runn ingwild.com/articles/flexibili ty.htm

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