Stretching your muscles before beginning to exercise and afterwards, will actually result in them feeling less painful after your workout and also prevent delayed onset muscle soreness which can happen days later.

So many people skip stretching their muscles before exercise, not understanding how important it is. Most of those who do not warm up before exercising would not even think about there being a need to stretch muscles after exercising, which is often called cooling down. They worked hard during their exercise and now they just want to drag themselves home before the pain of such a strenuous workout of the muscles overtakes them What they do not realise is that if they stretched properly they would not feel the pain afterwards.

From the therapists mouth

In my experience stretching is the best way to avoid soft tissue injury and it should always be done before and after exercise, as on the few occasions I have not stretched properly in the past I have ached for days afterwards! This is how lessons are learnt!

I always preach to my clients that they should stretch regularly even when not exercising just to keep the muscles and joints flexible. The results show when my clients that actually take my advice and do the stretches I give to them after massage, are the ones that recover quicker so I always see improvements each time I treat them.

See diagram below for some typical stretches to do on a regular basis.

Muscles explained and benefits as to why you should stretch…

• Muscles do one thing, and that is ‘contract’. That is how they work. All muscles cross over at least one joint, and the action of contracting a muscle causes that joint to move. Here's a good example: Your quadricep (thigh) muscle originates from the front of your hip (the anterior superior iliac spine, for the technically curious). It crosses over your knee joint, and inserts (as a tendon, since tendons are how muscles attach to bone), to your shin bone (tibia). The action of contracting your quadricep muscle moves your lower leg forward. 
• Muscles are the motors of your body. All action is due to their contraction. They can do more work if they have greater contractile strength. Contractile strength is greater when the muscles are stretched out. In other words, the longer the muscle, the more work it can do when acting on a joint.
• Stretching allows greater extension of a joint when moving. For example, if you are a runner, when you stretch out prior to running, your stride will be longer. If the stride remains the same length, then the involved muscles will be doing less work.
• Stretching helps prevent injuries. The more flexible a person is, the less the likelihood of a torn or sprained muscle. Over time, proper stretching strengthens both ligaments and tendons. Ligaments attach bone to bone, tendons attach muscles to bone.
• Stretching promotes faster recovery, since stretching the muscles helps to move toxins and waste products of muscular exertion out of the muscles.
• Stretching relaxes your body. Relaxing your body allows you to experience less intense negative emotional states.
• Muscles that are tight waste energy. Stretching allows you to become aware of areas in your body that are held with undue tension.
• Stretching feels GOOD! Anyone, at any age, can stretch. It does not matter where your flexibility level is when you begin, as long as you work at it you will improve.