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Originally Posted by frankotank
ahh...I'm with you now. yeah I usually get some stretching in before it starts as well. I mean heck the just jump right in. "OK everybody jog!"
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There's a reason for that. Previously the conventional wisdom is to stretch first, then warm up.
There's a lot of people who now say this was not correct at all, and you really should warm up with light aerobics before stretching. I saw an interview somewhere where he addressed that, saying new research showed you have to warm up first, which is why he does that for insanity (you may notice his warm ups generally don't involve an exercise that could be trouble if you didn't stretch)
Basically its the "you shouldn't try to stretch a frozen rubber band" theory.
Regarding whether the stretching they do is sufficient, the new opinion on stretching is that we overdid it in the old days, and the static 20-30 second stretching either did nothing for you, or in some cases actually weakened your muscles rather than strengthen them.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/sp...112pewarm.html
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While static stretching is still almost universally practiced among amateur athletes — watch your child’s soccer team next weekend — it doesn’t improve the muscles’ ability to perform with more power, physiologists now agree. “You may feel as if you’re able to stretch farther after holding a stretch for 30 seconds,” McHugh says, “so you think you’ve increased that muscle’s readiness.” But typically you’ve increased only your mental tolerance for the discomfort of the stretch. The muscle is actually weaker.
Stretching muscles while moving, on the other hand, a technique known as dynamic stretching or dynamic warm-ups, increases power, flexibility and range of motion. Muscles in motion don’t experience that insidious inhibitory response. They instead get what McHugh calls “an excitatory message” to perform.
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