A Good Stretch or Warm-Up: What’s Best Before Exercise?

BY JEN MURPHY from From The Wall Street Journal

To stretch or not to bother? That is the ques­tion ath­letes and week­end war­riors pon­der, as advice varies on the impor­tance of stretch­ing before a workout.

It’s impor­tant to dis­tin­guish between stretch­ing and warm­ing up, says Lynn Mil­lar, a pro­fes­sor of phys­i­cal ther­apy at Winston-Salem State Uni­ver­sity. A warm-up “is some­thing designed to get the blood flow­ing and mus­cles ready for activ­ity. Stretch­ing can cer­tainly be part of that,” she says. “I don’t know any coach who would say stretch­ing alone is ade­quate prepa­ra­tion before activity.

The type of exer­cise can help deter­mine how impor­tant it is to stretch. “For exam­ple, one of the more com­mon injuries sprint­ers suf­fer from is a pulled ham­string. That activ­ity is very dynamic so I’d sug­gest a dynamic warm-up, like jog­ging with high knees,” says Dr. Mil­lar. “A dis­tance run­ner rarely has a pulled ham­string. … When you go out for a long jog you don’t stretch, but you start out slowly and grad­u­ally increase the pace.”

Edward Laskowski, co-director of the Mayo Clinic’s Sports Med­i­cine Cen­ter in Rochester, Minn., says you’ll see track-and-field ath­letes at this summer’s Olympics per­form­ing dynamic stretches. “You often see hur­dlers slowly going over a few hur­dles and kick­ing their legs up at the hur­dle to get their mus­cles warmed up,” he says.

Age and genet­ics also are a fac­tor in stretch­ing. “Some of us are just nat­u­rally more flex­i­ble,” he says. “As we age, we start to feel more stiff and it does help to spend a bit more time eas­ing into a jog or warm­ing up the mus­cles before a game of soccer.”

Instead of stretch­ing, Dr. Mil­lar sug­gests get­ting the heart rate up before exer­cis­ing by start­ing out at a slower pace. Swim a few laps at a slower pace to get into the rhythm and warm up the body before swim­ming at full pace or bike at a very com­fort­able pace to grad­u­ally get the heart rate up and mus­cles warmed up before break­ing into a sprint uphill on a bike.

App Thursday: Lastics Office Stretch

Las­tics Office Stretch is ideal for any­one look­ing for two– to four-minute stretches that are eas­ily done at the office. This is the per­fect mobile com­pan­ion for any­one who needs a short break from star­ing at a com­puter screen or who is stuck on con­fer­ence calls all day. What’s great about these Las­tics’ stretches is that you can fol­low along and they don’t require a lot of space and time. Try them any­where, any­time through­out the day. Incor­po­rate them into your daily rou­tine and notice marked improve­ments in your flex­i­bil­ity, mood and over­all sense of well-being.

Descrip­tion
Stretch­ing has been proven to reduce stress, improve heart health, increase cir­cu­la­tion and much more.

Donna Flagg, a trained dancer, cre­ated Las­tics to give peo­ple a way to stretch that really works. Most peo­ple think they are stretch­ing when they actu­ally aren’t and they won­der why their flex­i­bil­ity does not improve. They assume that it is due to the nat­ural lim­i­ta­tions in their bod­ies rather than attribut­ing it to a flaw in their tech­nique. Las­tics changes all that, and who bet­ter to show you how than a dancer?

Fea­tures:

• High-quality videos
• Each 2–4 min­utes in length
• Easy to follow
• Ideal for any­time, anywhere
• Bet­ter than a cof­fee break!

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Post-Run Yoga Routine to Restore Your Legs

From Active​.com

If you have tight ham­strings (and what run­ner doesn’t?), the prob­lem may have as much to do with the front of your legs as the back. Tight hip flex­ors can pull your pelvis for­ward, putting stress on the ham­strings and lower back. These mus­cles, which con­nect your back and hip to your femur bone, become espe­cially inflex­i­ble after long peri­ods of sit­ting. So if you have a desk job or a long com­mute, you’ll find this series of stretches—which tar­gets the hip flex­ors and the hamstrings—especially ben­e­fi­cial. Do this rou­tine after a run once your mus­cles are warm. Hold each pose for at least 30 seconds.

1. DANCER

Start in a clas­sic quad stretch. Then, hinge for­ward, kick­ing your right foot back. Extend your left arm for balance.

2. DOWNWARD-FACING DOG WITH LEG LIFT

From downward-facing dog, lift one leg. Lower. Repeat on the other side.

3. FLIPPED DOG

From down­ward dog, lift your right leg, and rotate upside down. Reach your right arm out. Flip back. Repeat lift­ing left leg.

4. LUNGE WITH SIDE STRETCH

From down­ward dog, bring your right foot between your hands and come to a lunge. Reach your left arm overhead.

5. LUNGE WITH QUAD STRETCH

From a low lunge posi­tion (right knee on the ground), reach your right hand back and hold your foot.

6. BOW POSE

Lie face down. Bend your knees and bring your feet toward your glutes. Reach both arms back and grab hold of your feet.

SOURCE: Sage Roundtree, a USA Triathlon-and RRCA-certified coach and yoga teacher in Chapel Hill, North Car­olina, is the author of The Athlete’s Pocket Guide to Yoga. Watch her demon­strate this rou­tine at run​ner​sworld​.com/​y​oga.

Stretching is an Everyday Activity

FROM ACTIVE​.COM

Hey friends! Thanks for join­ing us today. We had fun work­ing out with you. If you had fun work­ing out with us, add more fun to your life by sign­ing up today!

Research reports that reg­u­lar stretch­ing may be more effec­tive in pre­vent­ing injuries than occa­sional stretch­ing and a review of seven out of nine stud­ies indi­cates that reg­u­lar stretch­ing improves sports per­for­mance. My motto has always been and con­tin­ues to be “Stretch­ing is for every day” (almost every day, whether we have exer­cised or not)!

Every day we move, bend, sit, walk (crane our necks?) and repeat the same move­ments dur­ing our day–this can tighten our mus­cles and cause what we call repet­i­tive stress syn­drome. We may even sleep in the wrong posi­tion dur­ing the night forc­ing our mus­cles to work harder to sup­port our spine and hence wake up feel­ing tight and stiff.

So, for those of us who stretch occa­sion­ally, rarely or never (I hope it’s not never!), here is my tip about stretch­ing that I send out at least once a year. More of my “how-to-stretch” tips can be seen in the cur­rent June issue of Body + Soul mag­a­zine titled “Sim­ple Stretches” with great pho­tographs illus­trat­ing some sim­ple but impor­tant every­day stretches to help us get started.

Why is stretch­ing so impor­tant? Stretch­ing increases our flex­i­bil­ity. Flex­i­bil­ity is a com­po­nent of fit­ness. When we increase our flex­i­bil­ity, we help to increase our over­all level of fit­ness AND we may pos­si­bly increase other aspects of fit­ness such as mus­cu­lar strength and endurance (ever have a stiff joint and feel fit?).

Stretch­ing can ease repet­i­tive stress syn­drome. This is also called overuse syn­drome. Do we sit at a com­puter? Ever hear of carpal tun­nel syn­drome, or have we devel­oped poor pos­ture? Stretch­ing the mus­cles and ten­dons that become tight from repet­i­tive move­ments com­bined with a strength­en­ing pro­gram can pre­vent or help heal these chronic con­di­tions that all of us are sus­cep­ti­ble to. Stretch­ing slows/stops our nerves from fir­ing. Won­der what causes a mus­cle spasm? Over-firing of our nerves causes the mus­cle to over-contract. Stretch­ing sends a sig­nal to our nerves to stop fir­ing. This in turn helps our mus­cles to relax.

Stretch­ing keeps our joints more lim­ber. Each joint has a dif­fer­ent degree of move­ment. This is called “range of motion.” For instance, we can bend our knee back­ward bring­ing our heel to our butt, and our hip can bend in mul­ti­ple direc­tions with vary­ing degrees. When we stretch prop­erly, we can main­tain an opti­mal range of move­ment (oth­er­wise we get stiff, and our func­tion is altered).

Stretch­ing and increased flex­i­bil­ity can help to pre­vent injuries. When our joints and mus­cles are lim­ber and flex­i­ble with move­ment through the full range, we have more bal­ance and coor­di­na­tion. When we retain our flex­i­bil­ity, our ten­dons retain their elas­tic­ity which reduces inflam­ma­tion and “ten­donitis” injuries (who hasn’t expe­ri­enced tendonitis?).

Stretch­ing can help us find mus­cle imbal­ances. When I first meet a client I assess their flex­i­bil­ity because I can find the mus­cle imbal­ances which we all cre­ate in daily life or sport activ­i­ties. Reg­u­lar stretch­ing can help us to find and lessen these imbal­ances which can ulti­mately lead to injury.

Stretch­ing can be a great stress reliever. We can take a time-out from stress by stretch­ing, which is a great way to relax. Easy stretches can be done in a chair at our desk when the ten­sion mounts. Add in a lit­tle deep breath­ing to increase our oxy­gen sup­ply to the brain and may we find our­selves feel­ing and think­ing better.

Do we need a recap? Stretch­ing more often can help us to relieve mus­cle ten­sion, pre­vent stiff­ness, injury and overuse syn­dromes. It can con­tribute to bal­ance and coor­di­na­tion and help us to reduce men­tal stress. We get all this and it feels good too!

Have we stretched today?

Warm-up vs. Stretching

Side note: Thank you to all our friends that joined us this morn­ing for our Try Us Out day! You all seem ready for a full month! Sign up today!

BY DANIEL

Ever won­der why we stretch after a work­out, and seem to wear our­selves out before the work­out has even started? Recent research sug­gest that rais­ing our heart rate for a period of 3 min­utes, or longer, will increase our blood cir­cu­la­tion and help pre­vent injury dur­ing intense exercise.

A proper warm-up should improve the blood flow to the work­ing mus­cle, which results in decreased mus­cle stiff­ness and enhanced per­for­mance. The increased mus­cle tem­per­a­ture also increases the effi­ciency in which the mus­cle expands and con­tracts releas­ing more oxy­gen and improv­ing endurance.

Stretch­ing, on the other hand, pro­vides no insur­ance against injury, but is still an essen­tial part of any fit­ness pro­gram. Stretch­ing is the only way to improve one’s range of motion and is the pri­mary method for car­ing for one’s joints and lig­a­ments. For best results, stretch­ing should be per­formed when the mus­cle is warm and each pos­ture held for at least 30 sec­onds. Long-term effects of stretch­ing can be real­ized in about six weeks.

For more infor­ma­tion on warm-ups and stretch­ing please check out these arti­cles on About​.com:

The Warm Up — How To Warm Up Before Exercise

When to Stretch — Why Experts Rec­om­mend Ath­letes Stretch After Exercise

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