“When you start to age you will notice one of the first signs of aging is stiffness”. Even when you are a teenager or young adult you will notice that you will tend to tighten up your body’s muscles and joints.

Flexibility is crucial not only for preventing injury but also, because muscles build strength and endurance only in the range through which they move, for achieving any form of your fitness goal.

Flexibility also becomes an issue for a lot of people whom after college may start spending less time moving their body and more time chained to a desk. This can cause a lot of tightening in the hamstrings and lower back, causing a lot of discomfort and risks of injury when performing various activities.

Don’t worry though, if you are already tightening up those muscle, know it is never too late to start a daily stretching routine to get you back on the road to improving your flexibility. The great thing is you can start one muscle at a time too, for example you can achieve great flexibility in your hamstrings but your shoulders may still be tight.

Therefore, it is a great idea to start with some simply all over body stretches and then work your way on toward more advanced specified muscle group stretches.

Here are some fantastic body stretches you can do in about 10-15 minutes a day to get your entire body stretched out:

1. Standing Torso Twist – slowly twisting the body in a standing position twist from left to right to loosen up the spine and lower back.
2. Reach Ups – Reach with both hands all the way up as high as you can and clasp them together and take a deep breathe in, next on the way down slowly lower your arms and hands and exhale returning the arms to the side.
3. Cat Stretch – either standing with your hands on your knees or on the ground with your hands and knees on the floor like a cat, round up your back with a deep breathe in and then relax your back to an arched position along with a big exhale, repeat for 5 deep breathes.
4. Seated Torso Twists – Sit on the floor and with your right leg out straight and the left crossed over the right leg, place your right arm over the left leg and reach behind you with your left arm toward the ground as if you are trying to look behind you. Hold for a couple of seconds and then switch legs and repeat on the opposite side.
5. Seated Straddle Stretch – Seated with your lead out in front in a V-position, slowly reach toward the center until you feel the stretch and then hold for 10-30 seconds. Repeat the exercise 3 times and exhale your breathe out when you are reaching to hold the stretch.
6. Back Crunch Rolls – Lie on your back and pull your knees toward you in a ball position and crunch your chest toward your knees and hold, then release. Repeat 5-10 crunch holds.
7. Standing Calf Stretch – Lunge forward toward a wall with one leg and leave the other leg stretched behind you with your heel to the floor if possible. This move looks like you are trying to push down the wall. Repeat stretch with the other leg.
8. Overhead Triceps Reach – Standing or seated reach behind your head with one arm and try to extend your fingers between your shoulder blades toward the middle of your back. You may use your other hand to grasp your elbow and help with the stretch. Repeat the stretch on the other side.
9. Chest and Triceps Stretch – Seated Indian style or standing, reach behind you with both hands and clasps them together. Try to extend both arms for a full stretch.
10. Alligator Stretch – Lie on your stomach and then gently push up onto your elbows at first and try to look back at the ceiling or the other wall behind you for stretch in your stomach muscles (abdominals) and your lower back. You may advance the stretch from your elbows/forearms onto your hands for a deeper stretch.

Make sure with any stretch you don’t stretch too far, a stretch should be held for about 10-30 seconds at the point where it just starts to stretch the muscle. You should never feel as though the muscle is burning or pulling and do not ‘bounce ‘ while stretching as this can result in a pull or strain of the muscle.

Also, for best results it is good to do a light warm-up of 5-7 minutes, like walking, dancing, a hot bath or cardio exercise to get the muscles warmed up before stretching them.