5 best tools for stretching at home and in the gym

Although athletes don't usually like to hear it, stretching is incredibly important in any kind of sporting activity and needs to be paid attention to. This is why, for example, in our article on home gym equipment, we also mentioned the very importantimportant foam roller and massage ball, which can really help a lot when stretching. In this article, however, we will introduce other equipment besides these two toolsthat will make stretching after your workout or at any time of the day much easier.

1. Foam Roller

Probably the most popular tool for loosening stiff muscles is the foam roller, usually translated into English as a foam roller. It is especially popular because it is affordable, relatively lightweight and really very easy to achieve an effective stretch. Just choose the part you are going to stretch, place it on the foam roller and gradually move the muscle part along it. This will not only improve blood flow to the muscles in question, but according to available studies, you can improve your blood flow by stretching regularly.This is quite important, for example, for the correct execution of squats and other basic exercises.

With the help of a foam roller, you can stretch all the muscles from the calves to the hamstrings and inner thighs to the glutes and lower and upper back. The exercise should not be painful, so we recommend starting gently and move slowly and deliberately on the foam roller to see where your muscles are more tight. You can then target these with either the foam roller mentioned above or, for example, a rubber ball, which we will look at in the next paragraph.

If you are interested in specific exercises on the foam roller, we recommend you to check out the videos on YouTube, where you can find a lot of them. For example, we liked one of the older videos by Aleš Lamka:

And when it comes to choosing the right foam roller, it's always a good idea to check the hardness of the foam roller. If you have more than 110 kilograms, you should probably also check the foam roller's load capacity, although of course there are products up to 150 kilograms. We would recommend this one, for example:

2. Lacrosse or rubber ball

A lacrosse (or any other rubber) ball can also be a great tool for stretching. The lacrosse ball has the advantage of being hard and small, so you can use it, unlike, for example, thethe foam roller, you can target exactly one small muscle group or specific point that it can release.A lacrosse ball can usually be used on areas around the spine, ankles, knees or shoulders, but your imagination and if you feel like massaging your calves, for example, there's no harm in using it.

When it comes to choosing a suitable ball, we definitely recommend the lacrosse ball, which, in addition toit's quite effective, it also usually costs a few crowns and you can carry it with you absolutely anywhere. However, you can also reach for other massage balls, which may be made of different materials and thus be much lighter. For example, we recommend the following ball:

Where to buy quality massage balls?

3. Resistance rubbers

Another one of the great aids we have to mention in this article is resistance rubbers. The great thing about these is that they can be used not only for stretching, but also for exercising at home. They are made from a variety of materials and provide different levels of resistance. We would lean towards latex rubbers, which while not as comfortable as fabric rubbers, are on the other hand very easy to maintain (just wipe them down from time to time) and offer quite a long life at a relatively low purchase price. Just like lacrosse balls, rubbers don't take up too much space in a backpack, soso you can take them on holiday or to the gym if yours isn't equipped with its own.

With the help of resistance bands, you can stretch all major muscle groups from the front thigh muscles to the hamstrings and adductors to the arms, chest shoulders and triceps. However, it's still handy to have a massage ball that you can incorporate after a docviresistance bands for additional focus on smaller muscles. You can try the following resistance bands:

4. Massage guns

Another great tool to use in your daily stretching routine is a massage gun. This works automatically, so you can massage yourself without any extra effort. These guns can be bought from the upper hundreds of crowns and usually come with many different attachments from the classic round imitation massage guns to thelacrosse ball to special forked attachments for vertebrae massage, so you can really massage your whole body with one device.

Once you buy the massage gun, it's easy to get used to, as the vibrations themselves can be slightly uncomfortable at first. However, once you get used to it, you may even want to gradually increase the intensity. Of course, more expensive massage guns are more effective and offerbut even the cheaper ones have a lot of work to do. For example, take a look at the following products.

5. Gymnastic ball

We'd like to end our article with a not-so-typical, but definitely very useful stretching tool. Just by sitting on the ball, the surface and deep muscles of the whole body are activated differently. However, if you choose to stretch on the ball, you will gain a number of other benefits such as a gradual improvement in stability and coordination of movement. The gymnastics ball can also be used as a substitute for a chair, for example at work, but it is not a good idea to use it for long periods of time. After about 30 minutes, it is better to go back to a conventional chair, which is not so strenuous, for example, for the weight lifters.

The gymnastics ball is usually chosen according to your height, as a 55 cm diameter ball is usually recommended for people up to 165 cm tall. With every additional 10 cm of height, the diameter of the ball should then also increase by 10 cm. Before buying a particular product, we again recommend that you check that it has the appropriate load capacity for your needs.

Well, that's all for this article. If you have any questions, feel free to ask us in the comments belowYou can also share your tips on stretching aids.