{"id":1541,"date":"2016-09-06T03:23:08","date_gmt":"2016-09-06T03:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/painremovers.apps-1and1.net\/?p=1541"},"modified":"2023-05-11T22:14:33","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T22:14:33","slug":"how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/","title":{"rendered":"How valid is stretching as a warm-up?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\"><strong>HOW VALID IS STRETCHING AS A WARM-UP?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Why are we trying to warm-up? Many people are a bit\u00a0\u00a0vague about what the &#8220;warm-up&#8221; is supposed to achieve. To clarify the issue, lets say that a &#8220;warm-up&#8221; at the very least <strong>should increase tissue temperature<\/strong>, as warm muscles function better than cold ones. &#8220;Warming up&#8221; should also have an element of getting the body ready for the activity that is to come. In other words, <strong>getting neurologically<\/strong> <strong>responsive and coordinated<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\">Then there is the confusion about the many different types of stretching:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">Your basic static stretch &#8211; stretching a muscle and holding it for a while<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">Various &#8220;advanced&#8221; types of stretching, which usually contain a component of contracting the muscle before stretching it<\/li>\n<li style=\"text-align: left;\">Dynamic stretching (involves rapid bouncing in and out of a stretched position)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>At what point is a &#8220;stretch&#8221; \u00a0actually &#8220;something else&#8221;?. Lets assume that by &#8220;stretching&#8221; we are referring to an activity that puts a muscle group into a stretch and involves at least holding it there for a few seconds. By this definition a whole lot of the so called &#8220;advanced&#8221; stretching techniques are actually not stretches at all.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Now lets look at how well &#8220;stretching&#8221; achieves the first goal of &#8220;increasing tissue temperature&#8221;:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Body heat is generated by metabolic activity, in particular muscle contraction. So by stretching alone, you will not achieve the goal of &#8220;increasing tissue temperature&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p><strong>What about the second goal &#8220;getting neurologically responsive and coordinated?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Randomly stretching your muscles in different directions is probably not the best strategy to achieve this goal. It is also a fact that soft tissue stretching (like touching your toes to stretch your hamstrings) is a learned skill and doesn&#8217;t carry over into other activities like running for instance.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion: <\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The best type of warm-up is probably just to start your activity slowly and gently, <strong>moving your body in the ways and directions that you will be moving it during your sport or activity<\/strong>. In other words, your warm-up should be <strong>SPECIFIC<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to jog or sprint, start by walking and walking lunges. A 2014 study even suggested that a pre-run stretch could do more harm than good, because the temporary lengthening of the muscle fibres &#8220;reduced the capacity of the muscle to produce explosive force&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Want to read more on this topic? <a href=\"https:\/www.painscience.com\/articles\/stretching.php\">https:\/www.painscience.com\/articles\/stretching.php<\/a><\/p>\n<p>t<a href=\"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/owl-neck-l.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1542\" src=\"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/owl-neck-l-300x200.jpg\" alt=\"owl-neck-l\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/owl-neck-l-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/owl-neck-l.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HOW VALID IS STRETCHING AS A WARM-UP? Why are we trying to warm-up? Many people are a bit\u00a0\u00a0vague about what the &#8220;warm-up&#8221; is supposed to achieve. To clarify the issue, lets say that a &#8220;warm-up&#8221; at the very least should increase tissue temperature, as warm muscles function better than cold ones. &#8220;Warming up&#8221; should also <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exercisetraining","category-self-care"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>How valid is stretching as a warm-up? - Painremovers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How valid is stretching as a warm-up? - Painremovers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"HOW VALID IS STRETCHING AS A WARM-UP? Why are we trying to warm-up? Many people are a bit\u00a0\u00a0vague about what the &#8220;warm-up&#8221; is supposed to achieve. 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Why are we trying to warm-up? Many people are a bit\u00a0\u00a0vague about what the &#8220;warm-up&#8221; is supposed to achieve. To clarify the issue, lets say that a &#8220;warm-up&#8221; at the very least should increase tissue temperature, as warm muscles function better than cold ones. &#8220;Warming up&#8221; should also Read More ...","og_url":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/","og_site_name":"Painremovers","article_published_time":"2016-09-06T03:23:08+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-05-11T22:14:33+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/owl-neck-l-300x200.jpg","type":"","width":"","height":""}],"author":"Verena McGregor","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Verena McGregor","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/","url":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/","name":"How valid is stretching as a warm-up? - Painremovers","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/owl-neck-l-300x200.jpg","datePublished":"2016-09-06T03:23:08+00:00","dateModified":"2023-05-11T22:14:33+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/#\/schema\/person\/cbd49a9a02973e8d0d59d2439c27efec"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/how-valid-is-stretching-as-a-warm-up\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/owl-neck-l.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/owl-neck-l.jpg","width":500,"height":333},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/#website","url":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/","name":"Painremovers","description":"The pain removal specialists","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/#\/schema\/person\/cbd49a9a02973e8d0d59d2439c27efec","name":"Verena McGregor","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0405928f410a5fd0ecd4e6301727ee948ead95abf7970db3125a8f0c722979de?s=96&d=monsterid&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/0405928f410a5fd0ecd4e6301727ee948ead95abf7970db3125a8f0c722979de?s=96&d=monsterid&r=g","caption":"Verena McGregor"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1541"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1543,"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1541\/revisions\/1543"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/painremovers.co.nz\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}