2022-04-07 23:06:47
Couple words on stretching and warming up – Should you do it before a workout?
Stretching before a workout is a bit of a controversy in the fitness industry. While some specialists claim that a regular static session of stretching before a workout is good practice, others claim that dynamic stretching (meaning there is movement involved) is the better option, while even saying that static stretching may cause micro-tears in muscle tissue that may be a risk regarding injuries.
Personally, the best for me is
using a rubber band to loosen up the joints and muscles that I’m going to train that particular day.
For example, if I’m training chest or back, I’d do some 5min of working the rubber band above, in front and behind my head trying to get as much blood and synovial fluid as possible to my joints and muscles.
If it’s leg day, I’d try to loosen up my lower back, hamstrings, sartorius muscles and making sure the knee, hip and ankle joints particularly are well lubricated before going to any heavy sets.
As far as warming up goes, let me tell you first of all that running on a treadmill before lifting will do basically nothing for you except making you look like a glazed donut.
Some options to warm up before lifting heavy are:
Arm Circles: make small circles with your arms straightened out at your sides slowly increasing the size of circles, doing both forwards and backwards;
Torso Rotations: stand with your feet shoulder-width apart and turn your upper body to either side until shoulders are perpendicular as possible to your feet, do the other side and repeat;
Leg swings: stand on one leg, try to lift the other one with a bent knee as far as high as possible and the slowly let leg fall as you straighten it and swing backwards;
Dynamic stretching: good mornings for your hams and lower back, holding onto a wall or doorway with both hands and stepping through the back again to fell chest muscles lengthen and you can do shoulder rotations with rubber bands and lifting arms up;
Warm-up sets: before you start lifting heavy weights, do a couple of higher-rep-lower-weight sets with perfect form and trying to fell every muscle involved in the movement and only then start putting on more weight.
In total, your warm-up shouldn’t last more than 10 to 15min, depending on what you’re training that day. Always try to keep increasing intensity as you go through the warm-up to make sure you’re also activating your cardiovascular system.
You should be starting to break a sweat by the end of your warm up.
If you need to work the mobility of particular joints/chains of muscles to improve your form on certain movements, do it on a separate session on another time of the day. Also, if you can alternate days (for example, training leg mobility on an upper body lifting day) it’s better as you have time to recover from each session.
#Protip #Harmprevention #Bodybuilding #Training #Didyouknow
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