Is it wise to stretch before exercising or not
72Extreme stretching, strictly for professionals
Some people are of favor that it is not wise to stretch before doing exercises and some people use to say that stretching should be an integral part
One should never ever stretch before doing weight training, as it will reduce the power of your lift and will cause loss in stability and this could lead to injury.
People who say dynamic stretching is good probably refer to activities-like baseball, etc., where you usually just warm-up by pitching a ball back & forth to the teammates or in sports-like, martial arts where stretching can prime the muscles in order to get them ready for use.
if this is the case, stretching is good but denitely not before weighttraining.
One more question which might come to our minds would be that can we stretch between the sets or can we just sit and rest between stretchs?
I would say no, as the idea of stretching between the sets is that you are cleaning your muscles out of the lactic acid when you do a stretch.
Imagine stretching of our biceps or chest to be similar like "ringing out a towel" that is soaked with some water. Therefore, if you do this, it presents same problem as written above by me, i.e., reduced power and losses of stability. It depends on your program and this is not such a big deal, but there is always a better side.
If you talk about between the sets, do some mild aerobic activity. Define your path through your gym between your machines and then walk up and down at a fast pace. When you do this, it cleans out much more lactic acid and will bring in much more oxygenated blood to the specific muscle you are training.
So it is for sure that do not ever just lie or sit and do nothing. This can be considered as the worst form of relaxation technique.
One more thing to add that some difference between all your exercising activities must be taken into account.
It will be much more stressful for youself to move from a fully relaxing position to a suddenly running position, rather than moving from a very slow jog to running position. Akin to this, it is much more stressful on your body to move from running too fast to fully relaxing. Least but not last, I would say it is much better to move from a fast paced run to a very slow jog and now to a fully relaxing position. Again, This is another reason as it is just not good to sit between sets or running or jogging and to do nothing between the sets.
Dave demonstrates six key stretching exercises
Is it good to strech before running and jogging
Never, unless and until by running you mean, "all out fast as you possibly can sprint, then no.
You need not to just warm up. Jogging is considered as a warm-up activity. How one can warm up before a warm up? It is totally senseless.
Do you think that jerking while doing streches will cause an injury to your body?
Yes, it is true. Even bouncing while doing stretches or bouning at the end of the stretch will cause an injury. If you are gently moving back and forth, it is okay but never go further than this.
You might be wondering if warm-up and cool-down can be done activity-specific rather then doing the same type of stretches again and again?
Warm-up and cool-down should specifically be done depending on your activity and never with the stretches. Stretch is not a good way to warm-up. If we are doing heavy set of bench-presses or any gym machine exercise, we can warm up by starting with very light weights and press only 15 times. Like this, and then we can add some more weight and do around ten or 12 repetitions. After that, we will add more weight and do only five or six repetitions. At last, we can add more weight and do our heavy set of three or four repetitions.
Some useful reference sites for the understanding how to stretch
- Body Building Diet, Tips, tricks, and exercises: Doubts with Answers regarding stretching before exe
Body building does not comes on its own, you must practice hard and work on your body routinely in order to get a perfect body. I have created this blog to explain different types of tips and tricks to build a good body keeping in mind - Stretching Exercise
WARM-UPS, consisting of stretching and flexibility exercises should be performed for a minimum of 5-7 minutes before aerobic exercise - Stretching Exercises - Lower Body Stretching - Exercise
Learn how to stretch your body from your About.com Exercise Guide - Warm up stretches prior to exercise
Warm-up stretching exercises to prevent injury - The Stretching Institute - 135 Unique Stretching and Flexibility Exercises
Take your Flexibility to the next level with 135 Unique Stretching and Flexibility Exercises. Plus free information to help you improve your athletic performance, eradicate sports injury and do away with tight, stiff, painful muscles.
Do you agree with my views regarding this topic. Anyway if you say yes or no, I invite you to give me feedbacks Loading...
Interesting to see how thniking has changed over time, once upon a time we were told you always stretch now in many sports the dynamic stretching approach seems to be winnning the debate. Good lens :)
I agree we should do streteching before excercises I hurt myself last spring when I suddenly started running without streteching
You can receive free advise on how to grow taller by 2-3 inches in less than 6 weeks by natural stretching. View my no-cost information on this and enjoy you new height here:
wait, so are you saying don't stretch before weight lifting? I do agree that STATIC stretching first thing is not a good idea especially before weight lifting as it can fatigue muscles, but Dynamic stretching is a different animal. That would movements like trunk twists and leg swings that get the blood flowing and the tendons awake. I enjoyed your article though and you bring up good points.=)
I am following this thing from the last few years.
Stretching is important before doing exercise.
Good Article ....well written :) 5 to 10 minutes of warm up cardio before stretching is recommended ...never stretch cold muscles .
Stretching lengthens the muscle fibers - increasing the range of motion . It can keep you from bulking out from heavy weight lifting program .
I agree that it does not matter how intensely you work out but how well and how consistent you are. Stretching is most beneficial as you give your muscles a headstart. great research on your topic.
Regarding resistance training, I do advocate mild strtching between sets to maintan flexibility. Over the years this has worked for me. You have presented a lot of good information here and its good reading. Thanks for sharing.
Very true. Stretching slightly fatigues the muscles. The more intense you stretch the more fatigued the muscles become. Thus, stretching in excess can be detrimental to any subsequent athletic performance. To learn more about flexibility, go here:
the key thing to point out is the difference between dynamic and static stretches. Literature suggests static stretching should not be performed prior to exercise as it reduce both lower limb power and strength (Faigenbaum et al., 2010) using the vertical jump as the measure of power, and upper body limb power and strength (Costa et al, 2009) using the bench press as the measure of strength.
Refs.
Costa, E. C., Dos Santos, C. M., Prestes, J., Da Silvia, J. B. and Knackfuss, M. I. (2009). Acute effect of static stretching on the strength performance of jiu-jitsu athletes in horizontal bench press. Fitness and Performance Journal , 8 (3): 212-218.
Faigenbaum, A. D., McFarland, J. E., Kelly, N. A., Ratamess, N. A., Kang, J. and Hoffman, J. R. (2010). Influence of recovery time on warm-up effects in male adolescent athletes. Pediatric Exercise Science, 22 (2): 266-277.
As a runner, I have found stretching to be a very important part of preventing shin splints, a common injury among runners. I run a number of shorter races throughout the year and have been amazed at the number of runners I've seen that do not stretch. But then, I'm less amazed at the number of those that complain of shin splints!
















prems4u 4 years ago
i agree with need of streteching before excercises