Fitness
Essential stretches to fight stiff winter muscles – Harvard Health
Does cold weather seem to leave you with stiff, sore muscles? It’s not your imagination; there’s science behind the symptoms. Fortunately, you can relieve discomfort and protect your muscles by stretching regularly.
How cold affects muscles
When the mercury drops, it threatens your body’s core temperature, which functions best at about 98.6° F. To stay warm, your body will send more blood toward your core. “The muscles in your legs and arms get less blood flow — and less oxygen — than they would in warmer temperatures. With less oxygen, the muscles are stiffer, they don’t work as well, and they fatigue easily,” says Dr. Sarah Eby, a sports medicine physician with Harvard-affiliated Massachusetts General Hospital.
Cold weather also affects nerves (which contribute to muscle function) and makes blood flow to muscles even less efficient.
All of these changes increase the risk for muscle and tendon injuries, especially if you’re less active in the winter and your muscles are weak and tight.
Two types of stretches
Dr. Eby recommends two kinds of stretches to ward off cold weather consequences.
Dynamic stretches get your muscles ready for activity. They consist of flowing, repetitive motions, such as walking briskly. The activity sends blood, heat, and oxygen to the muscles to help them work more efficiently and make them less likely to tear. During winter, they’re best done when you’re inside.
Most of the year, you need just a few minutes of dynamic stretching before an activity, and you might focus only on muscles you’ll be using (such as leg muscles before a walk). “But in cold weather, everything tightens up, and you need a dynamic warm-up for your whole body. Do lunges or squats, bring each knee to your chest, make circles with your arms, and twist your trunk left and right. Loosen up for about 10 to 15 minutes,” Dr. Eby says.
Static stretches keep muscles long and flexible and should be done only when your muscles are warmed up (after a workout, for example).
To do a static stretch, you hold a certain position for 20 to 30 seconds, without bouncing (which can tear muscle fibers). Examples include
- clasping your hands behind you, straightening your arms, and lifting them toward the ceiling, to stretch your chest and shoulders
- reaching for your toes while sitting on the floor with your legs out in front of you, to stretch the hamstrings (in the back of your thigh)
- doing a deep lunge while keeping your back heel planted on the ground, to stretch your calf muscles.
Static stretches feel good and lengthen the muscles, which fights stiffness, increases your range of motion, and improves your posture, balance, and agility. Dr. Eby recommends doing them every day as a preventive measure or to relieve pain and stiffness.
For more information about stretching, check out the Harvard Special Health Report Stretching.
Move of the month: Calf stretchStand up straight and hold the back of a chair. Extend your right leg back and press your heel against the floor. Bend your left knee and feel the stretch in your right calf. Hold for 20 to 30 seconds and return to the starting position. Repeat. Then repeat on the other side, with your left leg back and your right knee bent.
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What else you can do
While stretching might be enough to avoid stiff winter muscles, the following tips can also help.
Stay hydrated. This helps prevent lactic acid from building up in your muscles and causing cramps.
Dress for the elements. “Dress warmly, with a hat, a neck gaiter, and a vest or a coat, so you don’t need to shunt as much blood away from your arms and legs,” Dr. Eby says.
Take vitamin D3. Vitamin D deficiency can make muscles sore and achy. Take 1,000 to 2,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day.
Avoid junk food. Stay away from highly processed foods, such as cookies, chips, and frozen dinners. These can contribute to inflammation throughout the body, causing muscle discomfort.
If pain doesn’t go away
If muscle pain doesn’t go away, you might have an injury, such as a muscle strain. An important clue: “Sore muscles feel better once you loosen up and exercise. Strained muscles get worse as you keep going,” Dr. Eby says.
She recommends putting an ice pack on suspected muscle strains, applying topical pain relievers, and seeing your doctor if symptoms persist.
SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – Finding time to work out as a mom with young kids can be a challenge in itself, especially when you’re new to an area and don’t know where to start. However, a new fitness option strolled into Sioux Falls today. iStroll offers moms the chance to work out and meet other moms all while their kids can play or even join alongside them.
iStroll is a national organization that has more than 35 locations in the country but this is the first time one opened in South Dakota. It’s a full body workout that incorporates dumbbells, body weight, and jogging strollers when the weather’s nice.
“I found iStroll in Oklahoma and fell in love,” said Kelsi Supek who started the affiliate in Sioux Falls. “We made friends. It became our entire social network. The kids loved it and then we moved to Arizona during COVID. And all the moms were stuck at home. They were inside with our kids and lonely, honestly. And we were like, why can’t we start an iStroll and be out at the parks with the kids every day? And it took off.”
When Supek moved to Sioux Falls, she was encouraged by her family to start an affiliate and own it herself.
“Gym daycares did not work out for my children,” said Supek. “I would get 10 minutes into a class and then I’d have that person trying to knock outside the yoga studio going, Can I have Kelsey and her kids screaming in daycare? And it just didn’t work for us. So at iStroll they could be with me or I could be breastfeeding the baby as I was teaching in class.”
Classes are planned to continue each Wednesday and Friday at We Rock the Spectrum and First Presbyterian Church. For a full schedule for January and February, you can look at their Facebook. The first class is also free and memberships are for the whole family.
“Letting the kids see you work out is, it’s similar to homeschooling where like, you know, how are they going to love working out if they don’t see you working out,” said Kelly Jardeleza, a stay-at-home mom of three kids. “Whereas at other gyms they put them in a room and they don’t get to watch you. And how are you going to inspire them if they’re not watching you do it?”
Copyright 2026 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.
There’s no bad time to take a more active interest in your health, but the new year, for lots of us, feels like a fresh start. Maybe you’re planning to sign up for a 10k or finally have a go at bouldering, eat a bit better or learn to swing a kettlebell. Maybe you want to keep up with your grandkids — or just be a little bit more physically prepared for whatever life throws at you.
To help things along, Guardian Live invites you to a special event with public health expert Devi Sridhar, journalist and author Mariella Frostrup, and health and fitness columnist Joel Snape. They’ll be joining the Guardian’s Today in Focus presenter Annie Kelly to discuss simple, actionable ways to stay fit and healthy as you move through the second half of life: whether that means staying strong and mobile or stressing less and sleeping better.
To make the whole event as helpful as possible, we’d love to hear from you about what you find most challenging — or confusing — when it comes to health and exercise. What should you actually be eating, and how are you going to find the time to make it? What sort of exercise is best, and how often should you be doing it? Is Pilates worth the effort — and should we really all be drinking mugfuls of piping hot creatine?
Whether your question is about exercise, eating, or general wellness, post it below and we’ll put a selection to our panel on the night.
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Jan 6 (Reuters) – The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that it will limit regulation of wearable devices and software designed to support healthy lifestyles, issuing new guidance to clarify its regulatory approach.
The guidance, along with comments from FDA Commissioner Marty Makary, adds to existing policy that classifies low-risk wellness tools, such as fitness apps and activity trackers that encourage exercise, as non-medical devices exempt from stringent regulation, provided they do not make claims related to disease diagnosis or treatment.
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“We have to promote these products and at the same time, just guard against major safety concerns,” Makary said in an interview with Fox Business about artificial intelligence software such as ChatGPT, adding that “if people are looking up a symptom on an AI-based tool, let’s have that conversation when they come in to see their doctor or do a virtual visit.”
“We want to let companies know, with very clear guidance, that if their device or software is simply providing information, they can do that without FDA regulation,” Makary told Fox Business.
“The only stipulation is if they make claims of something being medical grade … like blood pressure measurement. We don’t want people changing their medicines based on something that’s just a screening tool or an estimate of a physiologic parameter.”
The agency also sent out a broader warning to consumers about the risks posed by unauthorized devices.
Reporting by Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Henderson and Sherry Jacob-Phillips
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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