It’s well known that stretching can help improve the flexibility of your muscles and the range of motion of your joints. Better flexibility and range of motion enable your body to work more effectively, which is important for enhancing physical performance and decreasing the risk of injuries.
What you might not know is that stretching can also improve non-muscular structures such as the blood vessels that circulate blood through your body.
Understanding arterial stiffness
You may already know that your vascular system is made up of tube-like vessels that carry blood through your body. Arteries carry blood away from your heart to the rest of your body, while veins carry blood back to your heart.
But as we get older, arteries begin to lose elasticity and become stiff.
Age-related arterial stiffening is, at least in part, due to the gradual loss of stretchy elastin fibers and the accumulation of stiffer collagen fibers in the arterial walls.
Increased arterial stiffness is a problem because it’s closely associated with high blood pressure and often precedes cardiovascular diseases such as stroke, heart attack, and heart failure.
Stretching reduces arterial stiffness
But there’s good news. A review published earlier this year analyzed studies from over the last decade and concluded that stretching significantly reduces arterial stiffness.
Interestingly, arterial stiffness in unstretched parts of the body was also reduced.
Passive or static stretching—where you move your body to your limit or place of tension and stay in that position for up to a minute—is the main type of stretching performed in these studies. This is a common form of stretching used to improve muscle flexibility and joint range of motion.
In one study, young, healthy...
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