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Is stretching in our nature, or is it an invention?


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It's just something that I thought about after bending over and touching my toes for 15 seconds in response to my lower back feeling stiff. It felt good. It's something that I did as an automatic response to that feeling in my lower back, but is it something that I've picked up over the years of hearing general fitness tips, or is it an impulse, or does it go back further than that? I also stretch my legs by extending them as much as I can when they begin to feel stiff, or "tired", or whatever the word that I'm looking for is. I think it has something to do with circulation.

 

You know, for something that is essential for proper, or at least optimized, muscle growth and recovery, stretches sure seem to be very specific and sometimes complex movements.

 

So, I wonder this: Is stretching something that Humans have been doing since the dawn of Humanity, or is it a more "modern" invention? And by that, I mean it's only as old as civilization.

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Cats and dogs stretch without thinking about it, we probably have always done the same thing.

^ qft. So do horses, cows, and birds. I'm not sure if that "perch and flex" thing butterflies do counts as a stretch but it probably does, so even bugs do it.

Humans codified some stretches based on our (limited) understanding of our own anatomy, but you don't have to stretch exactly the way the coach says. Just do what feels right.

Now, ask whether meditation is instinctive... I'll wait. ;)

Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future.

Hylian Assassin 5'5", 143 lbs.
Half-marathon: 3:02
It is pitch dark. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

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^ qft. So do horses, cows, and birds. I'm not sure if that "perch and flex" thing butterflies do counts as a stretch but it probably does, so even bugs do it.

Humans codified some stretches based on our (limited) understanding of our own anatomy, but you don't have to stretch exactly the way the coach says. Just do what feels right.

Now, ask whether meditation is instinctive... I'll wait. ;)

Let me meditate on that and get back to you...

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