How I Stretch Before Lifting Weights

You might wonder if it is necessary to stretch before lifting weights. There is information out there that tells you not to stretch and others that tell you that it is important to stretch.

How should you stretch before lifting weights? Should you stretch at all? When should you stretch?

There’s a ton of info below, but here’s the quick summary of this entire post if you just need the highlights.

• Limit your static stretching before lifting weights.
• Use dynamic stretching and gradual addition of weights to warm up before working out.
• Some people say it’s better to do static stretching after lifting weights, but I don’t do this.
• Stretching is not one and done. One stretch before lifting weights will not make an impact. Stretching consistently over time will improve your flexibility and make an impact.

Let’s dive into the details, so you can decide what’s best for you.

Pros and Cons of stretching

Let’s look at why some people encourage you to stretch before working out and others say to stay away.

Benefits of stretching before lifting weights

The point of stretching is to gently lengthen your muscles. When muscles are not used, and especially when they are stuck in the same position for hours at a time, they tend to contract, or shorten, and become tight.

Especially in modern society, we have many examples of sitting in a chair in front of a computer, or on the couch for hours at a time. Stretching helps to counteract that.

The main benefits you’ll usually find people mention about stretching are:

• Stretching helps improve and maintain flexibility
• You will achieve better range of motion when lifting after stretching
• Stretching increases blood flow to your muscles
• Stretching before lifting and other activities helps with injury prevention

The last point has been scrutinized heavily starting in the 2000s. The advice to stretch before lifting weights to prevent injury has been an accepted standard for many years. However, studies show that there is limited evidence to suggest this is actually true.

The modern thought behind the connection between stretching and preventing injuries is less direct. The idea is that one stretch before lifting weights or performing other activities may not meaningfully prevent injuries.

However, if you routinely stretch as part of an active lifestyle over time, the sustained flexibility has the potential to help you prevent injuries and other issues associated to a sedentary lifestyle.

Cons of stretching before lifting weights

Detractors of stretching before limit cite many reasons that range from it being unnecessary to stretching actually hurting your performance.

Some of the common reasons listed for why you shouldn’t stretch before lifting weights includes:

• Static stretching doesn’t actually prepare you for the exercise or activity
• Stretching calms you and decreases your heart rate instead of warming up for increased activity
• Lengthening muscles right before you need them to contract with force (such as when you lift weights) will decrease performance
• Some stretching can be excessive to the point of muscle fatigue before your workout starts
• Wasting time that could be used to lift if there’s no actual benefit

Most of the sources that recommend you skip a stretch before lifting weights circle around the idea that it’s better to warm up in a way that is specific to the activity you’re about to engage in. For example, running at a slower pace and slowly increasing that pace. Or, specific to lifting, that may look like performing the exercise in less strenuous ways and working up to your actual lift.

What’s particularly interesting is the potential to cause fatigue before you even get started really lifting or diminishing your potential performance without improving your ability to prevent injury.

Types of stretching

Not all stretching is the same. They have different uses and can be performed in a variety of ways.

Static stretch

Static stretching is noted by the lack of movement when performing the stretch. The idea is to lengthen a muscle and hold that position for usually more than 10 seconds.

This type of stretching is the one that most people are familiar with, although it’s starting to lose popularity as other ways to stretch take over.

If you are of a certain age group, you may remember performing static stretches in gym class, while the coach counts out loud how long to hold the stretch.

Many critics are particular concerned with static stretching before you lift, because they believe it does nothing to prepare you to perform any weight lifting exercise.

Dynamic stretch

Dynamic stretching, as the name suggests, involves more movement. Instead of holding one position and staying still, you continually move through the motions that your exercise will use. The movements are slow and controlled and give your body a chance to adapt as necessary before you apply a ton of weight or speed.

This type of stretching is taking over in popularity and quickly replacing static stretching as the recommendation prior to exercise.

Ballistic stretch

Ballistic stretching is a type that you may hear about, but is often not recommended. It is performed by using your bodies kinetic energy to move quickly to a stretch beyond what your muscle is capable of without the added movement.

This differs from dynamic stretching, because instead of relying on slow and controlled movements, you are encouraged to bounce around quickly to get your muscles to stretch.

Critics, including me, find this doesn’t help your muscle actually adapt to the stretched position. Also, you force your muscle into a dangerously lengthened position very quickly. This can lead to injuries instead of prevent them.

This type of stretching was popularized in 1980s workout videos. It should stay there. I don’t recommend this.

Stretch before lifting weights or after?

In addition to the different types of stretching there are arguments for an against the specific time when you stretch.

Most of the newer advice in the area is to avoid the prolonged static stretching that was recommended in the past. In fact, they recommend actually saving static stretches for the end of the workout. The idea is at that point the stretches help alleviate soreness by reducing lactic acid build up.

As expected, there are still inconclusive studies on how well that works.

So, the idea is to warm up prior to lifting by using dynamic stretches to ease your way into a workout. Then, after you are done lifting, use static stretching to elongate those contracted muscles.

How I include stretching in workouts

Based on learning from sources like those above, and also trial and error in my own workouts, I’ve come to a process that works for me.

I don’t want to spend a ton of time on warm up and stretching. In my advice on training for massive gains, minimizing the time you spend in the gym is critical. It ensures that you are working out with intensity, but also that you are not making your sessions longer unnecessarily, and threatening your ability to stick to the routine.

However, I don’t want to neglect a proper warm up either and end up nursing an injury that keeps me out of the gym.

Before I lift, I always warm up.

Static stretching has its place

Usually, this includes some dynamic movements and possibly some static stretching. The key for me with static stretching is to only use a gentle stretch to work out any excess tightness in the muscle I am going to train. However, I don’t hold that long enough that I lose complete elasticity in my muscle.

I want to feel like I can move freely, but not so much that I am too relaxed and can’t create force.

Any static stretching I do is limited to 20 seconds at the very most, and that’s only if it’s absolutely necessary.

Dynamic stretching is key for warming up

The easiest way to think of stretching for me is to replicate the movement I’m about to perform, just without any weights.

For example, if I’m about to squat, then I just perform some body weight squats. This lets my body work out any tightness and I can notice any areas of issue before there is a ton of weight pressing down on me.

Then, I work my way up to the working weight I will use.

The gradual addition of weight over the course of a few minutes will allow you to properly get your blood flowing, send a signal to your brain that you’re about to lift, and let your muscles adapt without starting from a completely cold place.

For this, I usually select 3 to 4 points between 0 pounds and the working weight I will use. If I’m doing 10 sets of 10 reps, then I aim for 5 to 10 reps at each warm up point. For example, I may use 25, 50, then 75 pounds for 10 reps each before lifting with 100 pounds.

If it’s a bar exercise I’m doing, then I still like to start with no bar and just let my body go through the motion. Next, I add the empty bar and go up from there.

I don’t do usually do any post workout stretching.

Example stretches

When thinking of dynamic stretching, I think the best thing to do is replicate the movement you will perform without weights and then gradually add more weight.

However with static stretching, here are some examples of ways that I try to warm up my muscles. I think of these in terms of body splits, as I have my preferred method of selecting which muscles to work out together.

• Chest- Stretch your arms out to your sides with your elbows straight. Move your arms toward your back. This should feel like the reverse of a chest fly to stretch your pecs.
• Triceps- Bend your arms and try to point your elbows to the ceiling. Your hands should be heading toward your back and the floor.
• Biceps- Stretch your arms out to the sides with elbows straight and palms facing up.
• Back- This depends on which muscles I’m targeting. One thing I really like about back stretches is that it forces you to build a better mind-muscle connection that will help you with your training over time.
  • Lats- Bring one arm over your head and bend your torso to the opposite side as if your are pointing with your head. Repeat with the other side.
  • Traps- Roll your shoulders forward and imagine trying to make them touch directly in front of you.
• Shoulders- The main concern here is warming up that shoulder joint before you put it under any stress. I like to make circles with my arms heading forward and also backward.
• Legs- Similar to back muscles, the right stretch depends on what you are targeting.
  • Hamstrings- Stand up straight. Bend forward at your hip as you try to touch the floor with your hands. Your knees should not bend. If you can’t reach the floor, you may try for your toes, shins, knees or wherever you are able to reach comfortably.
  • Quads- Standing up, bend one leg at the knee so your feet is behind your glutes. Use the arm on the same side to hold it in place. Repeat with the other leg. If you are unable to maintain your balance, try holding a wall or something fixed with the arm you are not using.

Thoughts or questions? Let me know in the comments!