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Man now im starting to get confused. To stretch or not to stretch? I work at a desk job all day and so I find it necessary to stretch prior to my workout just to get some blood flowin through my body...maybe the PT stretched me out enough that I didnt need to stretch again before lifting? Im just paranoid of getting injured from "not stretching" or "not warming up". Maybe this is just been burned in my skull from years of playing sports and being taught all the basic stretches to do prior to practice and I just carried that over to the weight room. I was confused about dynamic vs static stretching and I think I got the idea after reading up on it some. My basic stretching I do before lifting really focuses on my legs and back.

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"You can succeed if nobody else believes it, but you will never succeed if you don't believe in yourself."
-William J.H. Boetcker

22 yrs old
6'3 220lbs
Goals: Add lean mass and cut body fat.

No dude, it's nothing to be confused about. Stretch AFTER you lift. That's all. You can do dynamic stretches and mobility drills BEFORE you lift if you need to just don't do the classic "static" stretches that we all think of as stretching. Do that after.

LOL, you need to read the article and that'll clear it up. If you need to stretch there are before there are ways to do it and way to not. Static stretches slow you down, decrease your strength, mess up you coordination, etc. so on, if you do them before.

Dynamic stetches and to some extent isometric and PNF can be done before but I'd stick to dynamic.

But here's the problem. Stretching is NOT WARMING UP. Warming up is warming up. Two different things. Doing stretches before you lift will not protect you from injury. It's a myth. A proper warmup which can include some light fullbody cardio of some type, some basic loosening up mobility stuff and then your specific weight warmup....THAT will help protect you from injury. Static stretching will do the opposite.

Basically all the crapola we've ALL had drilled into your heads about the 'proper' stretching to do before you workout is bullshit.

If this isn't making sense to you yet let me know.

I know it sounds like heresy. But anybody who has any modern knowledge of this stuff left those notions about stretching before behind a while ago. Only the old stuck in a rut coach still believes it. Static stretching AFTER, however, has many, many, many benefits...but when I was talking about stretching before I thought you knew I meant after or I would have gone into all this, sorry.

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If you act sanctimonious I will just list out your logical fallacies until you get pissed off and spew blasphemous remarks.

Copy that! I am understanding it all now...man my PT leader is sooo retarded. He has us do the stupidest shit and I have no choice but to do it and I know that it f*cks with my workout! Frusterating...

I see what your saying about the stretches and I like the idea of doing some light cardio before I do my warmup sets and then do some stretching AFTER the workout. Correct?

<-----STILL A NEWBIE!

Static or passive stretching actually REDUCES blood flow to the muscles

Yep, basically what you said. If you do feel "tight" like I said you can do the dynamics. You'll have to teach youself about that and I can tell you a lot. Also you can do joint rotations and different kinds of mobility stuff before if it is necessary. And all that would generally be a good idea. There are many different kinds of stretching and flexibility and they all have their proper place.

But yes you should have a stretching routine that you do after each type of workout.

Like I said before if you have a chronically tight 'opposite' muscle then passively stretching it before would be a good idea. An example of this might be if your pecs were very tight and overactive and you were about to do a row of some type. Obviously the tight pecs could limit you range of motion. Also they could inhibit you ability through something known as reciprical inhibition. So stretching them in a case like that could help a lot because it would sort of de-excite the motor neurons if that makes sense. Remember that flexibility is a function of the nervous system.

On the cardio what I have found to be the best is something that gives you a good range of motion. Lots of people just get on the treadmill for a light warmup but I prefer something like a rower or anything that moves the legs and arms through a larger range of motion. It "gets the blood flowing" much better and it more similar to what you will be doing in the weight workout. Of course the cardio cannot be enough to be taxing to you in any way.

When you do the dynamic stretching prior, however, which I do qutie a bit, that's actually stretching and a warmup all in one not counting the weight warmup of course.

Gotcha Eric. Man this thread should be a mandatory stop for new inexperienced members cause I think we have covered a lot of topics here!

Half the 'veterans' on the board probably don't do all of this, lol.

Well I feel like I have learned SOOO much in the past few months and I feel like there is so much to still learn. I def want to learn things the right way and break any bad habits sense im trying to get serious with this and make it a lifestyle.

Eric, perhaps a couple of runs through a light setup (empty bar or BW) of low rep (2-4), medium tempo complexes would be good for hunt0r to try while he's sorting out the understanding/application of the dynamics. Thoughts?

I've got opinions of course

But before I voice mine I'd like to hear your thought's on it, IK.

I would advize you though, Hunter, to at least try the basic weight warmups techniques first without the extra heavy load at the end. It never really makes sense to go from not enough to more than enough. All this potentiation stuff, as I was getting into before, as far as research has mostly been studied prior to explosive type movements. However it would make sense there could be some benefit regardless since anything that increases peak power output has potential here. But the important thing to consider is that it mostly seems to work on highly advanced lifters. Like I said before I don't know if it is because of more resistance to fatigue, or a more mature neural response. Although I would surmize that because of a more robust nervous system reaction, the more advanced lifter simply gains an immediate fitness effect which more than offsets any fatigue effect. But the the less strong lifter, fatigue is greater and it seems to actually decrease power...although of course this is all individualistic and it would depend on just how much you do.
Just in general, though, I would shy away from it for "beginners".