how many of you stretch or warmup before work out?

[kier15]

i never do..can this be bad for you?

[Anticrombie315]

Well I don't stretch, but since I squat every day I work out (5x5), I run on the tread for 5 mins to loosen my legs. If I don't, my legs feel stiff and it makes my knees ache when I squat. For upper body, I don't i just get a good stretch on the first few reps. Like with bench, I take the weight all the way down and hold it for 5 seconds. But thats all the warming up I do. I don't recommend it, as it goes against common sense, but it is sufficient for me. If it aint broke, don't fix it.

[olinerules87]

you shouldn't stretch before you workout:

From a study by the National Strength and Conditioning Assoc.
"...prior stretching could reduce the number of lifts and limit the total benefit that could have been achieved. Finally, if the hypothesized neural inhibition is occurring, then prior stretching would prevent a set pool of motor units from ever being activated, and thus, a certain portion of the muscle would never get trained."

"Substantial evidence is now available to state that static stretching can impair strength and power performance, although the duration of the impairment, the exact stretching protocols, and the physiological mechanisms are not yet known. Given the lack of evidence in favor of static stretching during warm-up for injury prevention, it seems justifiable to exclude this component from the warm-up for strength and power activities. Progressive submaximal exercise intended to increase muscle temperature and practice trials of the ensuing activity should be retained.

Some coaches have replaced static stretching with dynamic activities. For example, Rutledge and Faccioni (24) outlined warm up activities for field hockey that consisted of running drills that isolated various joints and were performed with gradually increasing intensity. When an athlete performs run-throughs at progressively increasing intensities, the joints are taken to a new ROM; therefore, the muscles are being stretched dynamically. Whether such a dynamic warm-up has the same effect as static stretching for increasing ROM or influencing the injury risk is not clear, but is worthy of examination. Further experimentation is needed before the optimum warm up protocol can be identified."

I also attended a Strength and Conditioning clinic where warm ups were stressed. The speakers felt the best thing to do was a dynamic warm up to get your body going. Then doing a few sets of light warm ups to help the tendons. They felt like not warming up with light weight was the main cause for a lot of weight room problems such as tendonitis.

My advice after all the stuff I have read and heard is to do a dynamic warm up before lifting or running, don't stretch before the activity, but do stretch after you are done to help remove lactic acid and to increase flexibility because your muscles are warmed up after lifting.

[j.sundeep]

i never do..can this be bad for you?

I never did warmup, but from last couple of days as I have started lifting heavy weight I feel pain - like my skin is stretching, so I would recommend it.

[gobbles]

I always do a light stretch before workout, but I do more extensive stretching when doing legs or deadlifts, whenever I dont my legs are painful after workout.