When should I stretch? Before or after my workouts?
This is a VERY popular question. So what’s the right answer, before or after?
Trick question, It’s both! I’m sure you may have seen that coming but the real answer is in the “why”.
So WHY should you stretch before AND after your workouts. It’s actually quite simple.
We stretch before because you’re most likely tight. You want to make sure your muscles are nice and warmed up before just blindley jumping into a workout. By doing so, you’ll create blood flow to the muscle and lower your risk of injury drastically. You may get away with no warm up when you’re young, but as you get older it WILL catch up with you. So make sure you’re at the very least stretching the area(s) your targeting that day by doing both static (holding 1 position for an extended period of time) and dynamic (movement that warms up/stretches surrounding area) stretches.
What about after?
So after your workouts it’s important for a different reason. When we workout, we build up lactic acid in the muscles we’re targeting. That’s what leaves us sore for the following few days. In order to get rid of some of that lactic acid we need to get more oxygen and blood flow to the area. What’s one way to do that? By stretching!!!
So stretching is necessary for you to not only warm up your muscles before your workout, but for you to not be as stiff/sore after your workouts as well.
After all, flexibility IS strength (learn more about this in the blog linked below)
You Got This!
https://corecalisthenics.com/uncategorized/flexibility-is-strength/?no_frame=1
https://corecalisthenics.com/workout-education/why-is-stretching-important/
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