Learn Spanish (Latin America): Los atletas tienen que continuar estirando sus músculos. - The athletes have to continue stretching their muscles.

Los atletas tienen que continuar estirando sus músculos.

The athletes have to continue stretching their muscles.

Breakdown of Los atletas tienen que continuar estirando sus músculos.

tener

to have

his/her/its/their/your (formal)

Questions & Answers about Los atletas tienen que continuar estirando sus músculos.

Why do we use the gerund estirando instead of the infinitive estirar after continuar?

To express that an action is ongoing, Spanish uses continuar or seguir followed directly by the gerund (the -ando or -iendo form). While English lets you say either continue stretching or continue to stretch, Spanish requires the gerund here: continuar estirando.

Could I use seguir instead of continuar in this sentence?

Yes, seguir and continuar are interchangeable when talking about keeping up an action. You could perfectly say Los atletas tienen que seguir estirando sus músculos. Seguir is actually slightly more common in everyday spoken Spanish.

Why is the masculine article los used with atletas, since the word ends in -as?

The word atleta is invariable, meaning it ends in -a for both men and women. You change the article to show gender: el atleta for a man, and la atleta for a woman. Here, los atletas refers to a group of male athletes or a mixed-gender group.

Since sus means their and refers to the athletes, why do we need the plural sus instead of su?