Happy New Year everyone and happy first fitness Tuesday of 2017!! I am finally recovering from this weekend and getting back into the swing of things. I started January 1st with a 90 minute SoulCycle class and when you hear people say it is hard that is an understatement even for me who does spinning at least 4 times a week. When I used to do spinning I would always leave before the stretch part because I would just want to get out of the class and shower. Even when I was younger I would always just do the bare minimum of stretching not until I played JV basketball in High School did I start to take it more seriously. I didn’t want to injure myself because I wasn’t stretching properly, but with spinning didn’t think that I needed to stretch more than I normally did. One thing that I have learned since starting to work out more is that stretching is more important than you think. Even if you don’t really stretch fully before any type of workout after you should always stretch every muscle you have. There are times I would think oh I don’t need to stretch out my arms because I barely did any arm work, but that doesn’t mean you didn’t use your arms in a way you didn’t realize. As I have previously stated a foam roller is great for stretching, but you can use anything in your house. I personally use a towel to stretch out my legs by using wrapping it around my feet and holding either end of the towel and then pointing and flexing my toes in the process. It may sound silly, but think about all the stretches you did in your middle school PE classes and do those today. They are more helpful than you think and they will prevent you from getting stiff muscles and possibly hurting yourself in the long run. Hope everyone had a great weekend and for those of you in New York City are staying dry on the cold rainy day. <3