We are all busy and rarely think about our bodies in today's world. We don't realise how important it is to have time for ourselves. Yoga has been trending for a while now, and practicing it on a regular basis has real results. Many people think going to the gym is all we need to do for stretches, but they don't know gyms mainly focus on cardio and workouts. It might lead to missing out on important stretches and flexibility exercises. 

Practicing stretches regularly creates a balance between our physical and mental health. Stretching before and after exercise is important as it opens all our muscles and improves our overall joint movement, mobility and range of motion. In addition, if our muscles are sore, it means we have worked on them without loosening. 

Now let's talk about the body muscles where stretching is important. We can categorise our body into two sets, upper body and lower body. For the upper body, it is important to stretch the muscles of our neck, shoulder and lower back. And for the lower body, it is important to stretch the muscles of our calves, hamstrings, quads and hip flexors. These areas have critical muscles, which are important for our mobility and motion movements. 

Now let us talk about the flexibility exercises which we can practice for our muscles. 

The Plank 

This exercise is a very good practice to activate our muscles. It works as a warmup for our body before some heavy exercises or lifts. Then, when we don't have time for specific stretches, we can go for planks as it is simple and super effective. 

Do you know how to plank? At first, place your hands directly under your shoulder, don't keep them too far as that makes the movement difficult. Now place your feet in a way where they are almost touching each other. Then raise your body up to extend your arms, and your hands and toes are touching the ground. Finally, start withholding the plank for at least 30 seconds. 

Runner's Lunge 

This stretch works best for hip flexors which improve the muscles of the hips and waist areas. There is a difference between a runner's lunge and the standard lunge. In the runner's lunge, we start with a standing position and end up without hands on the ground. 

Start with your feet and shoulders width apart and take a big step forward. Move one of your legs as far as you can while holding the other foot in the initial position. Now try to reach down and balance on the tip of your fingers. 

The Chest Opener 

This one is for opening up our chest and loosening the shoulder muscles. To practice this, go to the corner of any room where two of the walls meet and face towards the corners. Now start by opening your arms wide apart. Now, after your arms are opened up, try stretching your hips and move things outwards as far as you can. 

The above are some of the basic stretchings which you can start by. Initially, you may start with a 5-minute session, but gradually, you will need 10 minutes to switch between the positions. After a while, you can even add more of the positions like Cobra, Downward Dog etc.