VIRILITY EXERCISES: STRETCH YOURSELF
To promote flexibility—the ability to use muscles and joints through their full range of motion—you should stretch at least three times a week. Regular stretching also helps to relieve stress, a major contributing factor to ED. When performed in a slow and focused way, stretching can be excellent relaxation therapy as well as a tension easer. Here’s the correct way to do it to avoid injury.
Static stretching calls for gradually lengthening through a muscle’s full range of movement until resistance—or discomfort—is felt. To maintain flexibility, an optimal session should last from ten to twenty minutes, with each stretch held for at least ten seconds. Then work up to holding each for twenty and then thirty seconds. To increase flexibility, stay in the stretch for one or two minutes.
Tight hamstrings are a major cause of poor back flexibility and back pain, which can lead to a diminished sex life. To relax the hamstrings, do the following two exercises daily. The morning stretch should be performed just after waking up. Sit on the edge of the bed with your feet flat on the floor and your knees at a 90 degree angle.
Keeping your knees together, bend forward at the waist, letting your chest touch your knees. Hold the position for ten seconds. Repeat five times. If you need a greater stretch, push your feet out farther from the bed.
The second stretch is the straight-legged hang. To do it, stand with your feet flat on the floor and your knees locked. Bend over from your waist and try to touch your fingers to the floor without straining. Without flexing your knees or bouncing, hold the position for one minute. Remember: if at any time you feel pain stop the stretch.
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