Stretching Before Working Out?

Question

My basketball coach said it's a proven fact that you should always break a sweat before stretching before working out/exercising. So he had us dribble a basketball up and down the court 30 times, do ladders and stuff like that for 10 minutes, then we finally stretched. Why do you need to break a sweat before stretching?

Answer 1

unfortunately breaking a sweat does not really mean that the body is warmed up. the majority of stretching should be done after exercise when the muscles, tendons and ligaments are warm and pliable. medical study has shown time and time again that stretching before exercising or an athletic event does not reduce or prevent injury.

Stretching before exercise does not reduce the risk of local muscle injury: a critical review of the clinical and basic science literature:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?Db=pubmed&Cmd=ShowDetailView&TermToSearch=10593217&ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVAbstractPlus

Answer 2

A warmup - not sweat: The warmup makes the stretch more effective.

Try it yourself - try stretching before warmup and after the warmup - you should be able to tell the difference.

I can stretch deeper

Purpose for the stretch: gets your body (especially the muscles, joints, tendons) ready for the activity. The stretch is an overextension of the activity which your body will be used to while you are doing the activity to reduce the risk of injury.

Answer 3

I could understand doing a light warm-up before stretching, but I still think it's best to stretch before and after strenuous exercise. I've never seen any studies that suggest sweating before stretching is necessary.

Answer 4

Your coach is Correct, sort of Sweating isn't nas neccesary as Warming up the muscles, there is a reason you should always warm up before stretching to prevnt injury.

if you stretch a cold muscle when it is at is most relaxed lengthened state you risk causing injury to the ligaments and when you go into an activity like basket ball after stretching you rmuscles are at their weakest point and can not protect your joints the way they should.

Answer 5

stretching is very important. warming up is a critical part of stretching.
If you try to stretch a cold muscle, you can seriously hurt yourself. When a muscle is cold, it is less elastic. This means that cold-stretching is not only more likely to cause injury, but it is also less effective at increasing the range of flexibility available to the specific muscle in question at any rate.
trust me... i hurt my hamstring a while back because i would stretch all the time, but improperly, i would never warm up.

hope this helps~

Answer 6

it sounds weird that he does that, but it's because you need to start out with a slow exercise before you stretch. I guess it just loosens up your muscles a little more gently than stretching,but you should always stretch before actually playing hard

Answer 7

Your coach is right. Your muscles need to be warm before stretching them gently. If they are stretched before they are warm, they will barely stretch, and they could be strained. The muscles aren't very flexible until your internal temp is warm.

Answer 8

You just need to warm up your muscles and get your blood flowing. Stretching is basically useless when your muscles are 'cold'. Also, if you're trying to stretch without warming up first, you increase the chance of hurting yourself by over stretching your muscle.

Answer 9

i play basketball and do a warm up before stretching and im not really sure why. maybe it's to get your muscles warmed up

Answer 10

I think recent research shows stretching has not been shown to prevent injury,...perhaps you could research this and find out if your coaches ideas are valid.