Save your spine!

So you’re in the gym lifting like an animal, breaking your personal records and feeling like an absolute beast. You feel fulfilled, you feel strong, you feel like you can take on the world. Once you’re done, you’re done and that means you leave the gym satisfied and ready for your post workout meal or protein shake. The problem with that is you’ve done a tremendous amount of damage to your body without decompressing. The thing is about exercising is that while it may have tremendous benefits as far as making quality gains, it can be a double-edged sword if you don’t do everything necessary to help your body to recover.

So what should you be doing after lifting heavy in the gym? The answer is alarmingly simple and genius all at the same time. Hang on a pull up bar.

Now, we know what you could be thinking. “That’s it, hang on a pull up bar and I’m healed?” Well, that’s just one piece of the puzzle. Obviously you should be stretching after a hard workout of any kind to help blood flow through the body to promote recovery. Hanging from a pull up bar is just one method to get a good stretch and relieve the pressure you put on your spine. Whether you put pressure on your lower back by performing deadlifts or rows, or if you’re compressing your spine like with squats, hanging from a pull up bar will relieve that built up pressure, not to mention stretch out the surrounding muscles to promote faster recovery.

So next time you finish a back breaking workout, be sure to add this stretch to the occasion. Making gains is paramount when training, but recovery is just as important especially if you want to be a beast for years to come.

Do you stretch after a hard workout?

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