Should You Stretch Before Working Out?

Should You Stretch Before Working Out?

Should You Stretch Before Working Out?

When one thinks about exercising we often imagine a good stretch before we get started. If you've ever played an organized sport such as soccer or basketball you will be accustomed to the image of the players doing hamstring and quad stretches before the game. But is this the best way to prepare for exercise? What exactly does stretching accomplish for you, and are there better ways to prepare? In today's article we're going to take a frank look at the effects of stretching, and see if you should include them before your next exercise workout.

The purpose to stretching is to try and make you less prone to injury during your workout. The idea is that by lengthening your muscles they will better be able to absorb shocks and abuse during the workout, and this will help you avoid tearing and pain. However, stretching does nothing for warming up your muscles; you are statically elongating them, but remaining cold.

That is why recently many people have come out in favor of warm ups. These are literally bouts of exercise that are designed to do nothing more than get your heart pumping and raise your core temperature. The benefits here are that with your blood circulating quickly all your muscles begin to receive fresh nutrients, your muscle fibers become warmed up and therefore more supple, and you prepare yourself for the rigors of exercise by actually exercising.

Conversely, it has been shown that stretching actually increases the chances of injury by removing the tightness that helps keep your body in shape and collected together. Warming up however can help you remain well connected and with optimal support of your joints, preventing further damage than might be engendered by a loose and stretchy set of muscles.

Therefore it's quite clear that warming up dynamically is preferable to stretching. Does that mean that stretching has no place in an exercise routine? Quite the opposite. Along with a cool down, stretching at the end of an exercise can help prevent cramping and aching the next day, and a good stretch is therefore critical at the end of any kind of strenuous activity. This is especially beneficial when coupled with a cool down series of exercises such as holding yoga poses or gentle movements that workout your joints out to the full range of their motion. Doing this has all the benefits that stretching lacks at the beginning of your workout.

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