What exactly does stretching do?

It can be defined as something soft or elastic being capable of being made longer or wider without tearing or breaking. What does this mean? Stretching makes your muscles longer and bigger. When you stretch a muscle, you are pulling on the fibers, and causing them to stretch out. Why would you want a longer muscle? Longer muscles have more potential for growth. If you do not stretch, your muscle still grows, but its growth is very limited because it is short. A short muscle can only grow so much. On the other hand, if you stretch a muscle, resulting in making it longer, there is more room for fibers to expand and grow, filling in the muscle. Think of muscles as balloons. You have both a short balloon and a long balloon. You can blow up the short one, but it can only be blown up so far. Then you blow up the longer one, and it can be filled with far more air, and can be inflated to be much bigger.