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Tight hamstrings are a common affliction in the modern era. For many, bending over and touching their toes with straight legs is a distant dream. 

But what makes hamstrings tight? In this post, we find out. Warning: it’s not what you think. 

Tightness, Stretching, And Short Muscles

Most people try to deal with muscle tightness by stretching their muscles and hoping that this will elongate them over time. However, lack of stretching isn’t a cause of tightness. And simply putting the muscle under load won’t make it get longer. That’s simply not how the body works. 

Tightness is often the result of failed stabilizer muscles in the hip. When muscles involved in rotating the hip don’t get used, they start to atrophy and weaken. The hamstring then takes over the role of stabilizing the joint, causing the muscle to feel tight. 

The result of tight muscles can be both embarrassing and painful. They are embarrassing because they make it hard for you to put your body in certain positions. And they’re painful because they make it difficult to move in the right way. 

In most cases, tight hamstrings are the result of lifestyle factors. If you spend a lot of time sitting down or just moving forward, instead of backward, side to side, or rotationally, then the likelihood of tightness goes up. The brain begins to send different types of signals to the hip joint, reducing reliance on regular hip muscles, and increasing reliance on the hamstring. 

Tight hamstrings are not the same as short hamstrings. If you have short hamstrings, it means that the muscle is physically shorter than normal. However, if it is tight, it means that it is bunched up and not close to its full potential length. 

How To Solve Tight Hamstring Issues

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Unfortunately, tight hamstrings don’t just make it difficult to bend over and touch your toes. They can also lead to back pain. When the hamstrings don’t work biomechanically in the way that nature intended, the body compensates. 

The trick to solving tight hamstring issues is to start moving your hips in different ways. You’ll want to internally and externally rotate them, depending on the problem that you have. Regular yoga mats are good for this. They provide a supportive cushion that helps you get into new positions. 

You can even do yoga postures that encourage healthy hip rotation. The more you can activate the small stabilizer muscles of the hips, the strong they will become, and the less tight your hamstrings will feel over time. Eventually, you should be able to touch your toes like everyone else you know. 

What’s great about these fixes is that they work on people who’ve had hamstring issues for many years. Even if you have been living with tight muscles at the back of your legs for decades, hip rotation exercises can help. The more you practice them, the more supple your body becomes. Other parts of the body stop overcompensating and you begin to use your hip joint as nature intended.

Sarah x

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The New Year is a time for resolutions and goals. One of the most popular resolutions is to get in shape, lose weight, or be healthier. The problem with this resolution is that many people don’t know how to reach their fitness goals. This blog post will discuss some ways you can increase your fitness level in the new year so you’ll be able to achieve all your goals.

Photo by Karl Solano from Pexels

Set Realistic Goals

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To have a successful fitness plan, you need to set goals. Make sure the goals are realistic and achievable promptly. For example, trying to lose twenty pounds within two weeks will not work out well for most people because it is too fast of a turnaround time. However, losing four pounds in one month is much more reasonable and will help create momentum that can be maintained throughout the year until your overall goal weight has been reached! Like a Compass your goals will guide you to where you need to go.

Be Consistent In Your Workout Routine

One thing that contributes greatly towards any workout routine not being effective will be if someone does not stick with it over an extended period. Exercise should always go hand-in-hand with proper dieting and a healthy lifestyle. The longer you stick with the same routine, the more likely your body will be to adapt to it – which would make any exercise much easier for you!

Take Advantage Of Group Fitness Classes

Group fitness classes are one of the best ways that people can get involved in an effective workout plan because they offer not only motivation from instructors but also other participants as well. It is always helpful if someone who has been working out for a while or even years can help show newcomers how things work, so everyone receives a fair chance at reaching their goals!

Get A Designated Spot For Training

Get a designated spot for training. If you don’t have one at home, go to the nearest gym or park and just start working out there instead. Companies like Compass can help you find the perfect home with a designated area for training. It’s important that you’re able to feel comfortable, as this will help motivate you even more than usual when it comes time for your sessions. 

Burn More Calories Than You Consume

If there was ever a great way to lose weight fast without going through too many difficult changes in life, this would be it! All you have to do is burn more calories than what you consume daily. Easier said than done, right? Wrong! There are plenty of ways to start doing this – even if it is just by making small changes each day, for example, taking the stairs instead of the elevator at work or parking further away from your destination so that you have to walk farther. Every little bit helps in the long run!

In conclusion, there are many ways to increase your fitness level in the new year. By following some or all of these tips, you should be well on your way to a more fit and healthy you. Remember to start slow and build up gradually, as this will help reduce the risk of injury.

Sarah x

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Playing sports has a lot of obvious benefits, including meeting like-minded people and being fit, healthy, and active. Watching sport can also have a few benefits, which often get overlooked. 

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Whether you follow your local football team or look out for Lions tour news, what are the benefits of watching sports?

Improved Relationships

Following a sport can bring people together from all walks of life, and can be a great way to meet new people. You can strike up conversations in the stand, knowing you already have something in common. If you already have friends who enjoy the same sport as you, you can attend games together as a bonding activity. 

The social side of watching sport is a real bonus, and watching a game together is a lot of fun. You can go to see live games, go to the pub to watch a game on TV, or take it in turns to host a viewing night in your homes. 

More Confidence

Being a sports fan can actually build your confidence. If you’re chatting to people in the stands or in the pub about your sport and engaging in debate about the sport, such as potential starting line-ups or strategies, you can build your confidence. Whether or not people agree with you, it’s good practice to talk to strangers, justify your opinions, and express yourself. 

By practising these skills like this, you can build your social skills for your everyday life or for at work, and become a more confident person. 

Makes You Smarter

Sports fans might not seem like the smartest people while they’re shouting at the TV, but in fact, watching a sport can make you smarter. Everyone knows a sports fan who can recite every statistic about their sport, team, or player of choice, or who can predict the outcome of a game. This isn’t always down to luck. 

Watching sports activates parts of your brain that enhance memory and language abilities. This comes from analyzing gameplay and studying the sport, without even realizing that you’re doing it. If you’re watching sports on a regular basis, you are watching all the details of the game, including things like referee choices, the crowd response, and how the manager is reacting. All these elements add up to a bigger picture, and doing this can make you smarter. 

Prevents Low Mood

Sports can be an escape, which improves your mood. When you feel as though you’re part of a team and have a network around you, you’ll feel happier. Noone’s team can always win, and even if this makes you feel sad for a short time, you can soon put it into perspective. Losses are a part of life, and having a supportive group of people makes you feel as though you’re in it together, which can lift your mood again. 

Of course, when your team are winning you’ll feel even better. The feeling you get when your team wins is amazing. When this happens, your brain releases endorphins that improve your mood.

Sarah x

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We are often told that sports are important, and we have an innate feeling that this is true. When we play, we feel better, and when we watch, we enjoy ourselves. So it does seem to make sense. However, the question really is why? Why are sports so important? Read on to find out just some of the reasons why we all need more sport in our lives. 

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Friendship

When we have sports in our lives, whether we play, go to games, or watch live sports like the British and Irish Lions tour, we will be able to make friends; we will be around people with the same likes and interests as us. This is crucial not just for children but for adults too, who often find it more difficult to make new friends as they get older. 

Friends in our lives mean that we can enjoy more social events, have someone to talk to when we need advice or simply a shoulder to cry on, and we know there is always someone we can have fun with, whether that relates to a shared love of sports or not. Studies have shown that those with friends are happier, healthier, and may even live longer than those without, or those who have very few people they can rely on. One of the many benefits of friendship that can help you in every stage of your life and in every situation is good self-esteem. 

Life Lessons 

Enjoying sports can teach us many life lessons as well. One of these is learning how to lose. Understanding that losses happen in life is important, no matter what you do for a living. If you’re a boss or an employee, if you own a business or work for someone else, if you are looking for work or have worked in the same place for a long time, knowing how to lose gracefully is crucial – you can have much better relationships and be more successful implementing this knowledge than if you always win.

You can also learn how to help others. Some sports are solo pursuits, but many are team games, and these are ideal lessons for showing people how to work together to be more successful. 

A Mood Enhancer 

Whether you are playing sports or watching sports, your mood will generally improve. Even if your team loses, you can still say that you enjoyed the game and the experience it offered you, and if you win, then that’s even better – a bonus to your good mood. 

Doing something you enjoy will release ‘happy hormones’ into your body. Serotonin is one of these, and it fights against cortisol, which is the hormone that can make people stressed. Therefore, the more you do something you enjoy – such as sports in whatever capacity most appeals to you – the better your mood and the happier you will feel. 

What’s really remarkable is that this happy feeling doesn’t only last for the length of the game, but continues for some time afterward. The more you get involved in your favorite sport, the happier you will be overall.

Sarah x