Who Stretches After Exercise?
I certainly do, but probably not how you think.
When you think of stretching I bet that you see some cute girl or bendy yoga Joe touching their toes or something similar.
Do you see Ronnie Coleman grinning his way through a chest stretch just after he has done his bench?
Maybe you should, because if you were to systematically apply this type of stretching to your routine you would literally force your muscles to grow.
The type of stretching we are talking about is not ‘having a stretching routine’, but having a single stretch for each muscle you are working as a part of your routine.
This is a secret that the big boys know about and I believe it is one of the biggest mistakes made by those who don’t grow as much as they want to.
For me, there are three reasons for doing this:
1/ The stretch forces your muscle to grow to adapt to the stretch (it tries to become longer and thicker to help protect it from the stress of the stretch),
2/ The blood that pools in your muscle is forced out against pressure, that pressure acts to stimulate new growth,
3/ You keep functional length in the muscle.
Part 3 probably needs a bit of explanation. When you do a bench press, you work the chest and front shoulder muscles through part of their range of motion. But they are only working through PART of their range of motion. Why is this a problem?
Because they will only respond to the part they are being worked through. So by only doing part of a range, you only get part of the potential results. Over time this means there is less and less need for them to grow, your muscles get shorter and they get LESS strong! (how many blokes have you seen walking round the gym with shoulders pulled forward from over working their chest and not stretching?)
There is a saying in physical therapy circles; ‘a long muscle is a strong muscle’. Would you agree that you need strong muscles to lift big weights and grow?
How should I do my stretches?
This is something that we are going to publish on the site, as a search around the internet has proved fruitless, when looking for a good resource for stretching for muscle growth. Keep your eyes peeled!
When should I do my stretches?
After each and every set of your exercises. The only exception to this is where you are doing supersets or compound sets. Then you should stretch after the pair of exercises.
How long do I need to stretch for?
30 secs to a minute seems to produce the best results.
How do I know I’ve stretched long enough?
It has been my experience that there are two periods of relaxation or letting go that a muscle goes through when being stretched. They both feel very similar and normally you will get the first happening after about 15-25 secs, then the second comes along about the same time again. I always go for the second relaxation and use that as my guide for ‘enough’.
We’ll keep you updated with the photos…]
Happy stretching!
George
April 10th, 2010 at 10:35 pm
I too have had many a quiet chuckle to myself about the lack of stretching post workout. It often seems in gym (weights) culture to be uncool to know the science of what you are actually doing, and more important to look good, (at least in the way they think they look good.)
George, I’m not too familiar with the names of my systems of exercises, I still base my routine on the one we used to in the late 90s, as 3 sets of max reps (usually 4-6). Am I right to stretch just at the end of my session or should I be stretching after each individual set?
Still doing similar weights, but legs (well thighs at least)are much bigger now due to not having a car and using the bike all the time. Have you tried jumping from a crouch onto a platform infront of you – I guess for explosive power? My record is approx 118cm, though nearly broke my neck twice in getting there!
Cheers
Rich
April 12th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Hiya Rich,
Shame I didnt get to see you when you were over recently.
I totally agree with you when it comes to people not wanting to lose that cool look, but the way the vast majority of people train is not only ineffective at producing the results they want, it is also frequently dangerous.
Stretching after each exercise will give you the best loosening of each muscle, it will also provide optimal conditions for the growth of that muscle.
Developmental stretching is doing a series of stretches after your regular routine for the purposes of becoming more flexible.
Box jumps are a great way of measuring power, I remember doing some at LA Fitness once and we got about the same height until one guy broke his ankle after a bad landing…
It’s interesting that you mention the bike riding, I wonder sometimes if my legs stay large due to the amount of riding I do. After all, if you look at the pro road cyclists they are all very well built in that area. Although MTB racers are not built in the same way, they are skinny all round by comparison.
Hope the rugby is going well, stick under that weight limit!