February 12, 2019
Health & Wellbeing
By Ben Leach
Training advice delivered to you from Personal Trainer, Ben Leach
There is still much debate around the best time to stretch and the effectiveness of stretching and whether or not it should form part of the warmup and so on!
If you look at the meta- analysis of this topic it would seem the following are the best guidelines for stretching and warming up:
- To warm the body up and raise the core temperature always to a night version of the training you are about to undertake at a far lower intensity. So if your about to go for a tough 5k run start by gently jogging for 10 minutes followed by some fast leg movements, high knees, hops and more plyometric actions to get the muscles prepped and the nervous system fired up.
- Do your static stretching after racing or training. Your muscles will be warm and more pliable and you will be able to get a deeper and more effective stretch. Static Stretching before exercise may actually be counterproductive as you’re effectively lengthening out the muscle fibres and then asking them to contract rapidly, not a great idea. Stretching pre exercise is relevant if you have a specific tightness or muscle issue that needs addressing but always remember to to your light base warm up before undertaking the training session or race.
Enjoy your training!
