Stretching — Why I Cut Back
The importance of timing and duration of stretching.
The Importance of Stretching
Stretching is important to maintain mobility and increase performance. When you stretch you can work on increasing your range of motion and relieve stiffness that often comes from age or improper form. By increasing your range of motion, you can get more out of exercises and your form will improve. These in turn lead you being able to grow old gracefully (as some may say). Ever see an older person struggle to pick up something they dropped, aside from acute injuries, they are likely suffering from tight muscles, ligaments, and tendons impeding their range of motion. It is also highly likely that some attention to stretching while they were younger could have helped them to avoid the position they are in today.
How Much Stretching is Enough?
Ten to fifteen years ago I incorporated two days of stretching and isometrics into my week. I would alternate these days between a day when I purely stretched and did isometric exercises and a day when I did yoga. The routines took anywhere from 1 hour to 1.5 hours. My reasoning for these routines came from when I realized that I had lost some of my youthful limberness and my thoughts back to when I was a child, and I did taekwondo. For taekwondo we stretched everyday and spent 20 to 30 minutes just warming up and stretching before we did anything else.
Back when I was in grade school, I was extremely flexible. I easily did the splits and kicked at head level. I could even put my feet behind my head and walk on my hands at the same time. I wanted to regain that type of flexibility. I worried that my lack of dedication to stretching had taken its toll and would only get worse with age. After incorporating these two days of stretching into my week I did find that I was able to regain a decent amount of flexibility. And, to my surprise, it did not take as long as I had thought it would. Of course, this also came at a price.
You see when you do extreme stretching you rare not going to have as high of a potential for limit strength. The only people that benefit from these separate and rigorous days of stretching are those that perform in a sport that requires extreme flexibility. Something like martial arts or gymnastics requires a lot more training on flexibility to due to the demand of the movement. But, for those that wish to be the best in a modality such as martial arts are willing to sacrifice some potential strength and power. The average person like you or me does not need to maintain such extreme flexibility.
Research nowadays shows us that flexibility is really about the range of motion that your muscles and connective tissue are put through when you work out. So, the greater your range of motion when working out and the more you focus on having form that creates a stretch in your range of motion the more flexible you will be without having to spend tons of time focusing, specifically on stretching. For the average person like you or me the advantage is going to be to spend more of our time in the gym focusing on our cardiovascular and muscular conditioning.
The Right Balance of Stretching
Recent studies show that you can maintain and increase flexibility and range of motion during your workout sessions with just a few simple rules.
First, I want to discuss two types of stretching. Everyone is familiar with static stretching, which is when you stretch a body part, hold, and feel that stretch. But not everyone thinks about dynamic stretching. This type of stretching is just as important as static stretching. In dynamic stretching you will perform a movement that goes through a motion or range of motion that will be used during your workout. Stretches such as arm swings and leg swings are dynamic.
Okay, so when do I do these static and dynamic stretches during my workout. It is best to use dynamic stretches at the beginning of the workout and leave your static stretches for the end of your workout. Dynamic stretches provide just enough warm-up and get those parts ready that will be working under load during your exercises. Then you want to perform your static stretches at the end of your workout when your body is completely warmed up by holding each stretch for 20 to 30 seconds.
There are three main reasons it is best to perform your static stretches after your workout. First, stretching warm muscles decreases your chance of injury and helps to lengthen the muscles giving you a better stretch. Second be waiting until after your exercise to stretch you avoid weakening your muscles before your primarily exercises. This means that you will still be able to lift heavier; go for more reps, jump higher, or set some other personal record.
Also, by holding the stretches for only 20 to 30 seconds you keep from overstretching which can cause your muscles to become weakened because you pull the myosin and actin filaments further apart when you overstretch. This results in less action potential and may lead to the need for them to repair themselves.
Putting it All Together
Let us put this all together by sharing a couple of examples.
If I am doing one of my lower body workouts, I have found that adding a 5-minute warm-up of dynamic movements at the beginning is the best at getting my muscles and joints. I do front to rear leg swings, side to side leg swings, some body weight squats, and some alternating windmill to reaches. Next, I move on to loaded warm-up sets for my first exercise. So, if I am squatting. I do for warm up sets adding approximately 30% of the previous set for each subsequent set. I start at a weight that put the weight on my last warm-up set at 10% to 15% away from my first working set. As I add weight for each warm-up set, I also decrease my reps from 8 to 6, reps, to 4 reps and finally to 2 reps prior to my first working set. This is what I have found works best for me. For you it may be just 3 warmup sets or even 5 warm-up sets.
On the other hand, if I am performing cardio using the heavy bag and calisthenics intervals, I do my dynamic warm-up a little differently. I will add a slightly longer warm-up of dynamic movements. These movements will include arm swings, arm circles, smooth punches up and forward while rotating my hips, along with some of the movements from my lower body warm-up. I then continue warming up with my first round consisting of lighter jabs and punches moving quickly and gradually increasing my extension and power through the round. After that, the following intervals are then performed at a slightly slower pace and include jump rope, jumping jacks, burpees, and ab rollouts.
At the end of both workouts, I add about five minutes of stretching during my cool down routing. Before I start the stretching I lower my heart rate with a couple of minutes of dynamic movements and a walking lap or two around the block. Then I do static stretches holding for 20 to 30 seconds each hold. I usually repeat each hold two to three times depending on the stretch.
I suggest you try adding in similar warm-up and cool down routines. Not only does this save time from dedicating days to stretching and allow you to focus on the parts of training you enjoy most. But it also keeps your range of motion and flexibility higher than skipping stretching altogether and adds a nice way to get warmed up before and cooled down after your exercise.
