What's the best way to warm-up?

The good old fashion sit and stretch?  Or the more modern, dynamic movements?

Which is best? Top Tustin Chiropractor Raymond Bunch explains.

For all the active people out there, questions about stretching are very common and there is a lot of confusion.  This short article should help.

One study was done by the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research comparing these two types of stretching head to head.

The title of the paper was Dynamic vs. Static Stretching Warm-up—The Effect on Power, Agility, Performance.

The study points out a clear winner.

Tustin Chiropractor Explains Static vs. Dynamic Stretching

To keep this short and simple…a warm-up before any rigorous activity is really important.  It gets the blood flowing to those muscles, loosens things up, and it even gets the nervous system ready for the activity.

By the way, if you watch any elite athletic activity, they take their warm-ups seriously.

What to do for a warm-up then?  Do you static stretch?  You know…bend over and touch the toes and stretch those hamstrings.

Or do you do some dynamic stretching?  Dynamic stretching is where you are moving in and out of the end ranges of motion, never "holding" a stretch.

The results of the study found that dynamic stretching was much better for your performance.

I believe there are times for static stretching for sure.  But before a workout or a race, dynamic is the better way to go.

I recently found two very good blog posts that highlight each, one for static and one for dynamic.

You should check them out to find some good routines for both.

For more information, call Bunch Chiropractic in Tustin at (714) 751-8570.