Yes, I have opened up a can of worms. But I have a couple of questions and am asking for your opinion on this. Modern research is not in favor of pre-workout static stretching due to that fact that it calms the nervous system and relaxes the muscle. Personally, I think this is flawed because once you start warm up sets, won't your nervous system and muscles get fired up again after you have statically stretched? Obviously, I wouldn't stretch out every muscle in my hip and thigh before I attempt a max squat. Also, wouldn't it make sense to have a really tight athlete to statically stretch before a workout (and no, I'm not talking an on-purpose weaking, such as stretching the hip flexors to increase gluteal strength) if he is really tight? Such an athlete who's pelvis excessively posteriorly tilts at the bottom of a squat causing a lot of undue stress on the low back. What would be the best way to treat this: "toy soldiers" or static stretching? I have personally static stretched or dynamically stretched before many workouts and have not experieced the dooms day predictions of what is claimed with static stretching. I do not hold a bias to either, but I have used my body as my laboratory, and have had no problems with pre-workout static stretching killing my strength. In fact, when I just started training and was a lot less flexible, I found that it helped. What is everyone else's opinion and experience on this? I am not pretending to know it all, i'm just giving my opinion and anecdotal evidence, so constructive critcism is very welcomed.
you should warm up the muscle first before stretching, take a walk, bike, hit the bag, i played hockey in college and we never stretched cold, warm up then stretch, ok thanks chofff
QFT - you will get better flexibility gains when you stretch warm. However, a good light stretch can be used as a warmup and it's better than nothing. I'll have to bring this subject up with my strength coach, but we've been over this before. I think it works something like this: Static stretching pulls the muscle fibers apart, making them looser, making it more difficult for the muscles to contract (which is essentially what you are doing when you are training martial arts or lifting weights). This can essentially lessen performance when you are practicing your sport. My coach recommends doing static stretching early in the morning or late in the evening, but not before workouts. This is all very abbreviated and probably partially innacurate so let's include an excerpt from T-Nation at this point. Not the best source, but hey.
plyometric squats are done by going down slow and accelerating up quickly, bruce lee used the equivalent in push ups, to increase hand speed
Yohan, I use that same theory when it comes to stretching for weight lifting. I just keep it to a simple warm up of my joints and don't do static stretches. Works for me. Of course after lifting I'll do some cardio and then go for all the stretching I want (dynamic and static). P.S. - I also like your suggestion that chof drops the word 'plyometrics' from his vocabulary till he knows what it means or at least stops dropping it randomly without explanation.
That's not a plyometric. It's simply good lifting technique. You know your stuff, you're just putting the wrong words on it. A plyometric single leg squat would be a single leg jump-squat, and you'd have to be in ridiculous shape to do one I imagine. Yep - I try to do some good dynamic stretching and mobility drills for my warm ups, or jump rope, because I :love: jumping rope. For whatever reason. Maybe I don't love jumping rope, I just hate it less than running and bikes. I do some light stretching before MA class and try to sit down in front of the TV, relax and actually make some gains on my static flexibility, though that doesn't always happen. Often I veg in front of the TV or play on the computer instead. No worries though.
Yohan! I like jumping rope too (love running, hate the bike). I know you can do a bit more stretching, come on!! I love yoga asanas, they seem to keep me interested, give me something to work for (eg. to be able to go into the full advanced moves eventually) and motivate me to stretch properly after a workout. chof - anyone in the Boston area better be careful when they hire a personal trainer.
I would love to get into a good yoga class around here - I think it would be ridiculously fun. It would give me another avenue to work on my flexibility too!
Lily Any particular yoga you prefer? I like the Vinyasas because it's a bit more aggressive, sometimes called Power Yoga.
