Stretching: Before or after?

Do it before and after! Its more important to do it before, by the way.
Also, can u send me some of those excercises?

 

What should be after is sort of a cool-down after practice, that is also really important.

 

My running consists of interval sprints. For that I was advised to do warmups in motion (kickbacks, running backwards, side shuffles, high knee jogging etc.) and then after the sprinting, cool down with static stretches. That's been working for me. Of my total sprint workout I actually spend more time in the pre and post work than actually running but it's really important especially as you get older.

 

The general advice these days is to do dynamic stretches immediately before training and static stretches immediately afterwards. Otherwise you can stretch at any point in the day. It's a good habit to stretch when you wake up and right before you go to bed - calms the mind as well.

 

Thanks

 

I stretch both before and after running, I consider the pre run stretches as warmup. Both most important is to stretch afterwards of course.. (It's RoadToLife2)

 

I do this for back pain, and it's super helpful!

 

I would ask if there is there a particular reason you want to become more flexible? Stretching doesn't really lengthen the muscles, what it actually does it teach your nervous system that it can relax and extend the range of motion further before it needs to "pull the breaks", so to speak. Of course, if you like doing it, I say keep doing it.

 

With practice, what I wrote doesn't really change that.
I admit I personally think stretching is overrated and wanted to explain what is happening. If you level of flexibility isn't causing you any problems, it doesn't need to be fixed.

 

When I took fitness in college, the professor was a doctor. He said that if you stretch cold, then you risk an injury because of the stretch or subsequent workout. He said to first warm up, then stretch, then workout.

Also, I think that this is right because I've noticed that I made the best flexibility gains was in hot yoga. The heat gives muscles and connective tissue a little more plyability. But outside of hot yoga, the next best thing is a hot shower or just getting a warm up through cardio, is good enough.

 

I didn't ask my professor that question. I am a certified personal trainer however. I have not stretched very often after a workout, but I can't imagine it would be bad on somebody. I think you should try it and see how it affects you. The goal is to get the most flexibility out of the full range of motion. Connective tissue injuries take forever to heal, since they have little blood flow.

 

My football coach said this.

Do active stretching before playing. And static stretching after you are done. That's the most popular method these days and proven too.

 

Hey @Hros ! I'm a fitness coach and to be honest there are lots of myths about streching and it's very controversial too. According to Wingate (OP will understand) and i tend to agree with them, Don't strech before and don't strech after your workout, It's a waste of time. When you strech before you potentially exhaust your muscles, Hence workout output might decrease. And when you strech for 5-10 minutes after your workout it does nothing. Most people think that Streching is good to avoid muscle strains. Muscle strains happens when your'e out of shape/not fit, And it stops coming back when your'e in shape. I've been training 5-6 times a week for a couple years and i haven't got my muscles strained since the really beginning and I NEVER strech. Streching is basically for increasing your range of motion and your goal is to become more flexible right? In order to become flexible, You have to start dedicating once a week(or even twice) only streching workout for at least 40 minutes and each static strech should take between 40 seconds to 60 seconds to see improvements. Also streching is really good if you want to avoid injuries in general

 

I agree. That stretching would be good to avoid muscle strains is what I learned as a teenager. In school sport it was taught like this and also many of the martial arts classes I intended devoted a lot of time to stretching before and after the actual training. But this notion has changed over the years.

These days I train often but sometimes I have a lazy week where I do nothing. If I go running or do a workout, I never do stretching and I never have problems with my muscles. By the way I'm nearly 40. I think a warm-up is everything you need and when you go for a jog the first kilometer can be your warm-up

I do Yoga sometimes which is basically a workout combined with stretching, I would say. I think stretching is a good and healthy thing to do. I don't know the pro's and con's of stretching after directly after a workout by the way. But doing it before is simply unnecessary and can exhaust you before the actual training.

It's funny how even the notion about static / flexible stretching changed. Years ago static stretching was supposed to be better, now it's flexible stretching. I hope that's correct and not an inapplicable generalization.
Anyway, with Yoga it's both: flexible and sometimes static (when you stay in one pose). And I guess that's also true for "western" gymnastics. So this is what I do. It's great!

 

Why not both ?