It looks very plausible that stretching before you exercise doesn’t do much for you. Multiple older surveys suggested this.
Annoyingly, the studies linked in the previous paragraph are 2 decades old, and somehow I can’t find a large, well controlled, trial.
Every physical therapist I’ve been to has said that stretching cold muscles is actually more likely to injure you than doing some light cardio to warm up before stretching.
Many sports coaches have said to me that stretching cold muscles worsens your performance and that you should stretch AFTER the exercise to aid recovery
Dynamic stretching before exercise and static after (plus before bed).
As an athletic trainer, I describe it like so:
Think of your muscles as a rubber band. If its cold, then its more at risk of snapping under load. To warm it up, you stretch it gently repeatedly. (Dynamic stretches) You don’t stretch it to its max and hold it there. (Static stretching) You’re just exhausting the elasticity. Saving static stretches for after activity keeps the rubber band from bunching up and sticking together as it cools down again.
An injured muscle could be described as being “colder” or like rubber bands stick together sometimes. And the best way to fix them is to work them back to normal in a controlled manor.
You shouldn’t be doing any exercising without a bit of warmup cardio. I do a 5 minute walk/jog starting at 2.5mph and going up 0.5mph each minute.
But you can do pretty much anything. Stationary jogs, high knee steps, laterals, jump-rope, etc.
exactly, stretching is to prepare muscles that you are going to be stretching abnormally during whatever exercise you are doing
if you look at rugby players these days they sit on a exercise bike to keep the muscles warmed up. gymnasts will be doing very different warm up