How to warm-up & stretch before, during, and after your workouts

To Warm-up...

Do light or very easy exercises for the body part you're going to work to get blood flowing to that area to get your muscles warmed-up so for example...

• If you're going for a 2 mile run - walk or jog for 5 minutes to warm up first or...
• If you're going to bench press 200 pounds in a workout - warm-up with 100 pounds first but...

The type of warm-up you do mainly depends on the type of workout you're going to do so...

• If you're going to do a real light workout like walking or riding a bike or even a weight training workout with light weights then there's really no need to warm-up but...
• The more intense your workout is = the more you need to warm-up and usually...
• Whenever you workout first thing in the morning - you'll need to warm-up or loosen up your muscles.

To stretch before your workout...

Start stretching before your workout only after you've warmed up to prevent any injuries while stretching and...

Before your workouts - you want to do more dynamic stretches with only a little bit of static stretching and...

• Dynamic stretches like this chest floor stretch here are just stretches where you are continually moving to stretch your muscles and...
• Static stretches like this basic chest stretch where you don't move and you hold the stretch for 5-to-20seconds so actually...

Doing the dynamic stretches before your workouts will help to both Warm-up and stretch your muscles at the same time and if you're doing a light workout - it doesn't matter how many static or dynamic stretches you do but...

Before your muscle building exercises, sprints or any other high intensity activities - you really want to do more dynamic stretches and very little static stretches because doing too much static stretches may weaken your muscles making you not able to work out with the same intensity or lift as much weight and...

If you do decide to do any static stretches before a workout - Make sure you hold the stretch for ONLY 5-10 seconds

To stretch during your workout...

The only time you can really stretch during a workout is probably during a weight training workout but during a workout you don't have to do an stretching but if do - just still keep doing mainly dynamic stretches with very little static stretches.

To stretch after your workout...

After your workout you can do mostly static stretches where hold the stretches for 10-to-30 seconds and this static stretching after a workout can help lessen any soreness you may experience the next day and...

Here's stretches you can do for certain parts of your body...

• See all arm stretches
• See all chest stretches
• See all rotator cuff stretches
• See all shoulder stretches
• See all butt, hip, thigh, hamstring, calf stretches

 

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