Everyone has the will to win, but very few have the will to prepare to win.
Pre- and post-workout stretching plays a key role in good preparation and long-term success. With these methods, you can improve your results with very little effort – protecting your body and even improving your progress.
You might not be worried about your mobility and think stretching is just a pain in the ass. But, today, we’re going to show you how and why you should do these great pre- and post-workout stretching routines. And, you’ll learn the fundamentals of prehab, which will enable you to enjoy better performance levels over extended timeframes.
So, keep reading to learn why stretching creates better results, and what are the best stretching exercises for legs, hips, and upper body.
So, keep reading to learn why stretching creates better results, and how to stretch well.
Benefits of Stretching
Why bother with stretching in the first place? You probably don’t want to hit a perfect split or becoming limber like a ballerina, anyways!
Your goals probably do depend on you not getting injured, however. Stretching unlocks a huge number of benefits, but here’s just a few of the most important:
- Reduced risk of joint injury: your muscles pull on your joints and the excessive muscle tightness can increase your risk of joint injury. Stretching reduces this tightness and protects the joints.
- Less muscle soreness/injury: you can reduce your DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) massively by putting time into stretching before, after, and outside of your workouts.
- Improved posture: your muscles determine your posture – they can become tight and pull/slump you over and/or damage your resting positions. Stretching undoes this and improves your overall health and wellbeing.
- Gaining control over your body: you might not have heard of it much, but control and mobility are paired closely – stretching can help improve proprioception and control over your muscles.
- Better exercise technique: performing certain exercises properly requires a lot of mobility – think about a deep squat. Stretching helps you achieve these positions and boost your overall exercise effectiveness.
Stretching provides benefits above and beyond those listed, but these should be enough to convince you that it’s worth your time. What’s more, prehab is a whole set of exercises and movements that have their own benefits and purposes.
Prehab: What and Why?
Prehab bullet-proofs your body before anything comes up.
Prehab means pre-habilitation. The name itself should tell you a lot about what it aims to achieve – mobility exercises that prevent common, recurring or predictable problems like injuries and pain. Prehabbing focuses on bullet-proofing your body before anything comes up.
Prehab exercises range from strengthening, to control, to improving movement. They address key parts of your body, and prehab makes up the other half of pre-/post-workout routines.
Stretching is important, but prehab and corrective exercise are critical in ensuring that you improve and maintain your long-term health and wellbeing.
The best approach to prehab? Stretch the tight muscles and strengthen/control those that are weak or under-used. This will provide the most comprehensive, well-rounded approach to your health and performance!
Different Goals: Pre- and Post-Workout
Before we jump into the sample routines, it’s important to get an idea of what the different goals are for pre-workout and post-workout stretching and prehab. They’re not the same and if you overlook these differences you’re not going to get the most out of your workout.
What’s the Point of Pre-Workout Stretching
Before you work out, you’re looking to get your body warm and improve the function of the muscles and tendons. You’re going to need to warm up, improve blood-flow, stretch out and make sure that you’re prepared for the exercise ahead. The main type of exercise you’re performing is going to play a big role in determining how you should warm up, so keep that in mind and adjust accordingly!
Pre-workout should also target your specific weak areas with obvious tightness or that seem prohibitive to your movement. For example, if you’re struggling with glute tightness, stretching should aim at improving ROM (Range of Motion) and creating a more complete movement pattern.
Static vs Dynamic Stretching
Static stretching is where you find a tight position and hold it, breathing through the stretch and trying to relax as much as possible. Dynamic stretching, on the other hand, moves into and out of tight positions in a steady, controlled rhythm to warm up the joints and muscles, while also relaxing these tight positions.
There’s been a lot of discussion on whether static or dynamic is best – static stretching has a long history but dynamic stretching is a newer, hyped-up method. The fact is that neither is better: it’s about how you apply them to your own problems. They’re tools in a toolkit and they are useful based on the problem itself.
How to Use Static Stretching
Static stretching improves long-term mobility.
Static stretching is an awesome way to improve your mobility by finding the tight spots and relaxing them. It combats the reflex in your muscles that screams “something’s going to break” when you reach the end of your range of motion.
Static stretching has been criticised pretty heavily recently because studies prefer the benefits of dynamic stretching and people have argued there’s no benefit to pre-workout stretching. This is okay – dynamic stretching works great – but static stretching does improve long-term mobility.
The short-term effects are key. Static stretching improves your short-term range of motion, and, when used before exercise, it allows you to reach important positions while loaded. This is key to tissue change and enabling long-term adaptation to this new position. By making the end-range more comfortable for exercise, it increases the time you spend in these key positions and makes a real difference.
How to Use Dynamic Stretching
Use dynamic stretches mostly for warming up.
Dynamic stretches are cool because they’re fast and make your mobility better in a relatively short space of time. The key fact is that their movement is more specific to what you’re going to be doing (moving into and out of ranges) and they contribute to joint-warming and muscle movement, too.
These two facts are key to making the most of your warm-up. Make no mistake, dynamic stretches are mostly for the warm-up: they’re about getting your muscles pliable as soon as possible and making the most of the very little time you have available for an effective warm-up.
Pre- and Post-Workout Stretching Exercises for Legs, Hips, and Upper Body
Warming up is about reducing injury risk, making muscles more pliable and generally increasing your overall preparedness for exercise.
A Full-Body Pre-Workout Warm Up
To warm-up, focus on moving as much as possible.
The purpose of your warm-up is movement: focus on moving as much as possible – both in end-ranges and in exercise-specific patterns. You’re just trying to get the muscles moving and ensure that all your joints and muscles are prepared.
This means that you should not be working at a high intensity – aim for a general pace of being able to talk (just like steady exercise). It’s going to take just 15 minutes to get through these stretching exercises (giving them one minute each) and it will make sure you’re healthy and limber.
This particular warm-up is a starting point but will need to be adapted to meet your needs. Dedicate more time to what is tight and problematic. It’s about making the most of your time, so make sure it’s working for you.
- Exercise-Specific Cardio (5 min pyramid)
- Inchworm + Push Up
- Kneeling lunge to hamstring stretch
- Kosack Squats
- Toe-Touch Walk
- Shinbox
- Banded Good Morning
- Straddle Stretch (with Toe-Touches)
- Shoulder Dislocates (With weight if possible)
A Full-Body Post-Workout Cooldown
Cooldown to reduce soreness and improve recovery.
Your cooldown is all about putting together a routine that reduces your soreness and improves recovery for the muscles and joints. Recovery is one of the three key steps in long-term progress, and your commitment to this step is going to be a big determining factor in long-term gains.
For a cooldown, you should spend around 10 mins on static stretching and reducing the build-up of lactic acid and other waste products in the muscle. For this reason, it starts with gentle exercise and ends with gentle, relaxed static stretching.
This time will also contribute to a better switch back to relaxed thoughts and behaviours. You might want to hype yourself up for tough exercise but post-workout should be aimed at relaxing and getting into a recovery mindset as fast as possible.
- Exercise-Specific Cardio (5 min descending)
- Foam Roll
- Kneeling lunge
- Quad Stretch
- Shoulder stretch (underhand to floor stretch)
- Straddle stretch (deep)
- Hamstring Stretch
- Pigeon Stretch
Closing Remarks
Stretching is easy to overlook but it’s a key part to prepare for progress and success. It’s the type of fine detail that has a serious impact on the long-term trajectory of your performance.
Everyone has the will to win, but only champions have the will to prepare to win!
You only need to put a small amount of time into performing and recovering better to see a significant return and give yourself the best chance to achieve your potential!
Use these routine templates as rough guides. Remember, no matter who you are, pre- and post-workout stretches (and prehab) will aid your overall success, and these routines are a great place to start!
Credits
Back Stretch and a Beautiful Sunset in Bolivia by Silvia
Woman Stretching in Nature by 12019
Ballet Dancers by Pexels
Stretching next to KettleBells by tacofleur
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