4 ms·

Many exercises are simply not safe if your muscles are tight or you lack the flexibility to do them properly. Swimming, weight lifting, most sports come immedia

Many exercises are simply not safe if your muscles are tight or you lack the flexibility to do them properly. Swimming, weight lifting, most sports come immediately to mind.

PlanetFunk 14y ago
I'd say that not stretching and not warming up are two different things.
electronvolt 14y ago
I'd agree that there are certain movements that you really don't want to attempt without a certain amount of prerequisite flexibility, which often requires a certain amount of static stretching to achieve. However, overall flexibility seems to be a longer term condition than just pre-workout stuff. Stretching post-workout or daily but disconnected from pre-strenuous exercise seems to make you more limber/capable of movements that require more flexibility to safely/correctly do. In particular, most of the serious dancers I know stretch(ed) a huge amount (often daily) and also did fairly strenuous dance (often daily), but the static stretching and actual exercise were highly removed from each other. There are also a lot of movements in most types of dance that are either impossible or dangerous without a certain amount of prerequisite flexibility. Pre-workout warmups are also seem important for avoiding injury: if your muscles are tight/tense and you throw yourself into a strenuous exercise, my experience and everything I've heard says you're going to have a bad time. From personal experience, but every time I've injured/hurt my muscles it was during exercise where I hadn't warmed up or had done a bare minimum of warmup. Source: Mainly personal experience and what I've seen as a former competitive swimmer (high school varsity, butterfly, fairly serious), former dancer (modern; not serious, but I know some people who were part of larger dance companies), and someone who is currently involved in fairly intense bodyweight strength training (think gymnastic conditioning).
bcbrown 14y ago
I'm a competitive powerlifter. Your statement isn't quite true. The best way to acquire the flexibility for weightlifting movements is to perform those movements. If you aren't flexible enough to squat to the correct depth, the solution is to squat as deep as you can, and let that serve as the stretch. The accepted wisdom amongst my crowd is that the appropriate warmup prep is some dynamic movement to raise the body temperature, like rowing or biking, followed by practicing a given movement at progressively higher weights, until you are ready for the work sets. I've never heard a weightlifter recommend static stretching before training.
- john_b 14y ago
  I second this. While I'm not a powerlifter, I do lift regularly. Two years ago I stretched before doing anything, including a warm up. Sometimes I would be in a rush and skip the stretching. After I noticed that it made no noticeable difference, I dropped it and just did my regular warm up (run a mile). Now, before doing anything really heavy, I'll just do the movement with little weight or only body weight. I've been able to lift more and seem to have less muscle fatigue as a result.
- vidarh 14y ago
  I do powerlifting, though not competitively, and I can't agree with you that the best way of acquiring the flexibility is to do the movements. I struggled for nearly a year to improve my depth on my squats and deadlifts that way. It took <3 months to fix once I saw a physiotherapist that gave me some dynamic stretches to do in between my workouts. I increased my squats from a paltry 2/3 of my body weight and reduced range of motion to 1.5x my body weight at full range of motion in 6 months from I started doing the stretches, after having been stuck without any improvement for many months. I've kept increasing since. I don't doubt that doing the movements may work for some, especially if you have reasonable flexibility to start with, but it certainly didn't work for me, or at least did not give noticeable results over a very long period of time, whereas it took less than 2 weeks from I started doing my stretches until I saw substantial improvements. I absolutely agree with you that pre-exercise stretches is not recommended for lifting weights, but that does not mean stretches are not useful.
  - hv23 14y ago
    Can I ask specifically what kind of dynamic stretching you were doing? I have chronically tight hips that leave me unable to perform "adequate" squats - poor range of motion and balance on the squats, and lack of power. I'd love any tips you have to offer.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      Not much, actually. Swinging a leg at a time back and forward, and left and right, as well putting a foot at a time forward and doing a pike stretch down to that foot and right back up again, walk a couple of steps and doing the other foot (like #2 here, but a foot forward at a time: http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-More-Flexible-Back http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-More-Flexible-Back). Strict good-mornings are also quite good once you have decent amounts of flexibility. Strict = make sure your back stays arched, push your butt as far back as possible, with a slight bend in your knees, and hinge/bend at the hips. Essentially you should feel it in your thighs and butt and not elsewhere; if you start losing the arch in your back, you've pushed as far down as you can go, go back up and repeat. It's more important to keep form than forcing yourself as deep as possible - you'll get better depth soon enough. I've later incorporated some static stretches including several of the one in the wikihow link above, but the ones above were enough to see dramatic improvement when done a for a few minutes a couple of times a day. I also do asian squats regularly (so effectively sitting down in a squat position, unloaded, for as long as I an do - a few years back I wouldn't be able to get up without intense pain from that position, if I got into it in the first place...) and feel that helps me increase the depth I get into (and it's made it so much easier to play with my young son, to be able to effortlessly squat down to him instead of ruining my knees...).
vidarh 14y ago
You definitively want your muscles to be tight for weight lifting. But you also want the flexibility to do the full range of motion. What you absolutely don't want is to stretch before the exercise to loosen up the muscle - you're not suddenly going to gain much extra range of motion, but you will reduce your ability to control the movement. Stretching after (our outside of) your regular workouts, on the other hand, can be useful.
scott_s 14y ago
The article presents studies which contradict that exact claim.

Many exercises are simply not safe if your muscles are tight or you lack the flexibility to do them properly. Swimming, weight lifting, most sports come immediately to mind.

PlanetFunk 14y ago

I'd say that not stretching and not warming up are two different things.

electronvolt 14y ago

I'd agree that there are certain movements that you really don't want to attempt without a certain amount of prerequisite flexibility, which often requires a certain amount of static stretching to achieve. However, overall flexibility seems to be a longer term condition than just pre-workout stuff. Stretching post-workout or daily but disconnected from pre-strenuous exercise seems to make you more limber/capable of movements that require more flexibility to safely/correctly do. In particular, most of the serious dancers I know stretch(ed) a huge amount (often daily) and also did fairly strenuous dance (often daily), but the static stretching and actual exercise were highly removed from each other. There are also a lot of movements in most types of dance that are either impossible or dangerous without a certain amount of prerequisite flexibility. Pre-workout warmups are also seem important for avoiding injury: if your muscles are tight/tense and you throw yourself into a strenuous exercise, my experience and everything I've heard says you're going to have a bad time. From personal experience, but every time I've injured/hurt my muscles it was during exercise where I hadn't warmed up or had done a bare minimum of warmup. Source: Mainly personal experience and what I've seen as a former competitive swimmer (high school varsity, butterfly, fairly serious), former dancer (modern; not serious, but I know some people who were part of larger dance companies), and someone who is currently involved in fairly intense bodyweight strength training (think gymnastic conditioning).

bcbrown 14y ago

I'm a competitive powerlifter. Your statement isn't quite true. The best way to acquire the flexibility for weightlifting movements is to perform those movements. If you aren't flexible enough to squat to the correct depth, the solution is to squat as deep as you can, and let that serve as the stretch. The accepted wisdom amongst my crowd is that the appropriate warmup prep is some dynamic movement to raise the body temperature, like rowing or biking, followed by practicing a given movement at progressively higher weights, until you are ready for the work sets. I've never heard a weightlifter recommend static stretching before training.

john_b 14y ago
I second this. While I'm not a powerlifter, I do lift regularly. Two years ago I stretched before doing anything, including a warm up. Sometimes I would be in a rush and skip the stretching. After I noticed that it made no noticeable difference, I dropped it and just did my regular warm up (run a mile). Now, before doing anything really heavy, I'll just do the movement with little weight or only body weight. I've been able to lift more and seem to have less muscle fatigue as a result.
vidarh 14y ago
I do powerlifting, though not competitively, and I can't agree with you that the best way of acquiring the flexibility is to do the movements. I struggled for nearly a year to improve my depth on my squats and deadlifts that way. It took <3 months to fix once I saw a physiotherapist that gave me some dynamic stretches to do in between my workouts. I increased my squats from a paltry 2/3 of my body weight and reduced range of motion to 1.5x my body weight at full range of motion in 6 months from I started doing the stretches, after having been stuck without any improvement for many months. I've kept increasing since. I don't doubt that doing the movements may work for some, especially if you have reasonable flexibility to start with, but it certainly didn't work for me, or at least did not give noticeable results over a very long period of time, whereas it took less than 2 weeks from I started doing my stretches until I saw substantial improvements. I absolutely agree with you that pre-exercise stretches is not recommended for lifting weights, but that does not mean stretches are not useful.
- hv23 14y ago
  Can I ask specifically what kind of dynamic stretching you were doing? I have chronically tight hips that leave me unable to perform "adequate" squats - poor range of motion and balance on the squats, and lack of power. I'd love any tips you have to offer.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    Not much, actually. Swinging a leg at a time back and forward, and left and right, as well putting a foot at a time forward and doing a pike stretch down to that foot and right back up again, walk a couple of steps and doing the other foot (like #2 here, but a foot forward at a time: http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-More-Flexible-Back http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-More-Flexible-Back). Strict good-mornings are also quite good once you have decent amounts of flexibility. Strict = make sure your back stays arched, push your butt as far back as possible, with a slight bend in your knees, and hinge/bend at the hips. Essentially you should feel it in your thighs and butt and not elsewhere; if you start losing the arch in your back, you've pushed as far down as you can go, go back up and repeat. It's more important to keep form than forcing yourself as deep as possible - you'll get better depth soon enough. I've later incorporated some static stretches including several of the one in the wikihow link above, but the ones above were enough to see dramatic improvement when done a for a few minutes a couple of times a day. I also do asian squats regularly (so effectively sitting down in a squat position, unloaded, for as long as I an do - a few years back I wouldn't be able to get up without intense pain from that position, if I got into it in the first place...) and feel that helps me increase the depth I get into (and it's made it so much easier to play with my young son, to be able to effortlessly squat down to him instead of ruining my knees...).

vidarh 14y ago

You definitively want your muscles to be tight for weight lifting. But you also want the flexibility to do the full range of motion. What you absolutely don't want is to stretch before the exercise to loosen up the muscle - you're not suddenly going to gain much extra range of motion, but you will reduce your ability to control the movement. Stretching after (our outside of) your regular workouts, on the other hand, can be useful.

scott_s 14y ago

The article presents studies which contradict that exact claim.