LiE's Diet and Training Thread

I've always been told and read never to stretch before a workout, warm up with very light weights or just the bar by all means. But never stretch before a workout, after is fine and encouraged by a lot of people
 
A large amount of stretching does reduce strength temporarily iirc. However if you did your stretching about ten mins before warm ups, and the warmups are fairly substantial, there would be pretty much no affect. A few small stretches in problems areas will be fine. For example, I'll often do my hip flexors, hip capsule and some hamstring if the are feeling ropey, and I have never had a problem that I know of :).

Steedie is right there, after is better for making permanent difference rather than just a little nudge because you have been curled up in a ball all day :).
 
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Thanks chaps. I'll do a few more stretches tonight on my problem hamstrings and see how it goes. I always stretch afterwards normally except the hip opener before squatting.
 
It's the kind of thing that if deadlifts have completely screwed up your hamstrings and you have a few minutes spare in the day, there should be enough time for your muscles to recover before you go and do your squats. Alternatively you could do it the night before.

You'll never guess what my hamstrings are like today :p.
 
I sit in my office chair working from home all day so hamstrings get pretty short. I could stretch at home before heading to the gym, would that be best?
 
Can be any amount of time as I work at home. I normally leave my house at 4.55pm and start lifting my first warm up weight about 5.15pm. Takes me 5 or so minutes to warm-up before I'm doing the working sets.
 
If you could finish the stretching about 30mins before lifting I think you'd be fine. It would cause anything crazy like a leg to just stop working it might just feel a little slow.
 
From what I recall, the studies on this vary from showing it increasing injury risk or reducing performance. No mention of increasing performance.

As Dom has explained, that doesn't actually mean you can't do it.
 
All I know is when I do a good 15 minutes of hamstring/medial hamstring stretching my squat feels a lot better at the bottom when retesting. I'm going to give it ago today and see how it feels with heavy weights because I've only retested with light weights.

I think because I'm short in these areas normally I'm having to work extra hard at the bottom to get into a good position. If I can get a bit more range I can be more comfortable and efficient.
 
I do it occasionally at home, but not in the gym. Foam roll the hamstrings too.
I do have a tight/tend spot which I'm trying to figure out, it's basically right at the top of glute where it meets the lower back.
 
After deadlifting it can be a little pumped yes.

Smashed the squats tonight :) got 11 reps but I honestly think I could have got 12 but decided against a iffy extra 1.

Squat
WU - 70x5, 87.5x5, 105x3
WS - 115x5, 132.5x5, 150x11

Goblet Squats
25x8, 35x8, 35x8, 35x8

RDL
80x9, 100x8, 110x7

Calf Raises
50x15, 50x20, 50x16

The goblet squats were good, hit my quads a lot more than the squats did. RDL were explosive bar humping action.
 
I'm very jealous of those squats, it makes me very upset to think where I would be if I hadn't gotten injured :(.

Try lying on your back with a lacrosse ball in that interface between high glute and low back and just smashing that on an off day, see if that makes a difference.
 
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