Stretching Help

[Chris.H]

Greetings peoples,

I'm just after some stretching advice. When to stretch? after or before training? whether to stretch until is painful or slight tension? Any stretching tips would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Chris.H

[Scott R. Brown]

Light stretch before work out to help limber up, full stretch after workout when your muscles are warm.

I used to stretch for a full hour after my workouts, before I injured my hip about 3 years ago. I was performing the full splits up until that time at age 49. Even with the injury I can still come close to the splits to the right and left, but no longer the straddle splits until my injury fully heals.

Use your judgment on the pain level. Usually it is safer to go to slightly painful tension. If the pain is too great it is your body telling it is too far.

Learn to relax as you stretch and take your time. My hip injury was actually from stretching and it is the worst injury of my life, meaning it is taking the longest to heal of any other injury I have sustained. I was not fully paying attention while I was stretching, as occurs from time to time when one is performing an activity they have been doing for 35 years, and I paid the price.

[Frost]

Depends on what you mean by stretching and what activities you are doing

Dynamic stretching is good before class, it raises core temp, increase range of movement and fire correct muscles to be used in the workout and thus gets the body ready for action, static stretching is normally done after class or late at night (because a tired stretched muscle can be a weaker muscle and prone to injury)
Some static stretches before exercise can help depending on what exercises you are planning on doing: hip flexor stretch, solas stretch, calf stretch etc before squatting can help your form and prevent injury, the key here is short (10 -20 seconds) stretches

Longer harder stretches should be done after workouts

[David Jamieson]

ballistic stretching (http://www.complete-strength-training.com/ballistic-stretches.html) in warm up, during breaks in workout and afterwards in warm down.

long stretches are more for correction of injury than warm up.

avoid long low stretches. Unless you're learning the splits, in which case go ahead. :p