We are sure you have been told or heard it a lot… ‘make sure to stretch’ but what does this mean and when should we do it and what stretching should we do?!
Stretching is great for improving mobility and posture, increasing range of motion through and around the joints, and increases blood flow to the muscles. This is essential to ensure effectiveness and activation of the muscles in a warm up to prepare your body/joints/muscles for the work they are about to undergo, as well as for the recovery post training once they have been under contraction during the workout and are now fatigued.
However, which stretching should you do before and after?
‘Static stretching’ and ‘Dynamic stretching’ and both are types of stretching with both being beneficial for optimal performance, range of motion and recovery. Though both are beneficial it has been researched and found that each has their place regarding when best to be performed.
'Dynamic stretching' is designed to take the joint and muscle through more challenging repetitive continuous active movements to increase the core temperature of the muscle and improve range of motion at the joints.
Dynamic stretching is best performed BEFORE a workout/training session and should mimic the movement patterns that are to be completed in the upcoming workout/training session. This will decrease the risk of injury and optimise maximum ability and performance throughout the workout/training session.
- Leg swings
- Arm swings
- Body weight movements
Static stretching is designed to hold a certain position for an approximate time, anywhere from 10 – 30sec or more depending on the muscle needing to be stretched, the stretch is then relaxed and then reapplied to take it to a further range of motion and held again, this is then usually repeated and held until range of motion is reached.
With static stretching you are aiming to take the muscle to its furthermost point and for this reason it is recommended to be completed as a cool down after the muscles have been under contraction to help stretch back out to normal resting position.
- Hamstring stretches
- Chest stretches
- Quad stretches
Studies have been done that indicate completing static stretching prior to a workout/training session will actually inhibit the muscle from firing.
To explain this further lets get get our physiology nerd on! Muscles are made up of Sarcomeres with filaments called Myosin and Actin. Now if you stretch these prior it inhibits the interaction between the two filaments resulting in the muscle not contracting, which will decrease the amount of force and power output of the muscle, meaning the muscle will not work at maximal effort and this increases the risk of injury. In simpler terms (see picture below), if you stretch an already relaxed muscle (top image) to an even more relaxed/stretched position (bottom image), the Myosin (Red) and Actin (Blue) will have to work harder to be able to come together for contraction (middle image) with the possibility of not reaching contraction at all, therefore decreasing the amount of force and power output and not working to maximal effort.
As you can see here in the picture, the bottom image is of a muscle at maximal stretch, this is what static stretching aims to do, and when we workout/train we contract our muscles to the middle image here, therefore static stretching inhibits this to be able to happen.
However, you can see the benefit of the reverse, and how static stretching will help the contracted muscle after a workout/training session to get back to the relaxed state.
We hope this has helped identify and clarify the benefits of both dynamic stretching and static stretching and why both should be included into your warm up and cool down, to maximise optimal performance with workouts/training sessions, increasing blood flow and range of motion, and improving overall everyday flexibility and mobility.
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