Is it beneficial to stretch immediately before strength training?
I recently read that after stretching, there is less contact between the muscles actin and myosin heads, which temporarily reduces the muscles strength. I am wondering if this is true throughout the muscle’s entire ROM and how long does it take for the muscle to regain it’s original strength? Would stretching negatively impact a weight lifting regimen? Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
Hi Alex. Just a point of clarification. Although dynamic “stretching” is called STRETCHING, in truth, because it involves moving your body parts through a full range of motion, in essence it IS a warm-up (for example, in the purest sense of the term, jumping jacks could be considered a dynamic stretch, but it’s also considered part of a warm-up). So, because the goal of dynamic stretching is to warm-up the connective tissues and MOVE, one could call dynamic stretching ‘warming-up.’
I agree with the other posters that dynamic stretching is primarily used when competing in an athletic event, however, if my “weight training” was going to incorporate more ‘movement-based’ training techniques such as plyometrics, for example, then I would probably use and recommend the use of dynamic stretching.
I hope that this helps.
LaRue
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