When I was a college swimmer at NMSU back in the day we had mandatory weight training with our weight coach Tony. Tony was always far to up-beat for 6am and he liked to blast the sounds of Journey at a high volume. It was honestly what I imagined hell was supposed to be like. Anyways, Tony introduced us to this way of stretching that he called The Dynamic Warm-Up. I found it way different than my usual routine of stretch...hold.....close eyes...fall asleep for 5 seconds...get yelled at. This warm up consisted of holding stretches for around 5 seconds and it even got our heart rate up. I didn't quite appreciate this new method of stretching until I researched why dynamic stretching was preferred over the static stretching routine I was use to. It's well known in the running world that by performing static stretching (holding stretches for 30 seconds or more) you can hurt your performance, and in some cases cause injury.
Recently, while I was killing time on Twitter, Runner's World tweeted about a video they had called Dynamic Stretching. All of sudden I was flashed back to my 6am workouts and Journey started playing in my head, I had done this routine before! I followed the link and watched the video and refreshed the stretches in my mind. They had posted a Dynamic Warm-Up specifically tailored to running and I was excited to try it.
For my next scheduled 5 mile run I tried my new warm-up routine. I found that increasing my heart rate and utilizing the quick stretch routine before my run really benefited me. I felt like I was able to get into my pace rhythm faster than I usually do, and I liked that it sort of pumped me up and prepared me for my run. The results of the Dynamic Warm-up felt awesome. The Journey songs I had stuck in my head, not so much. However, I know that I didn't really appreciate it back then, but I got to thank my old school college weight coach Tony for being ahead of the times and introducing us to dynamic stretching. Even if his choice in music wasn't so much.
Check out the Dynamic Stretching video below.
Yes! dymanic stretching is far better! LOL at the "fall asleep for 5 seconds" because that's kinda me in the morning during my meditations LOL.
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to see the video (blocked at my job). I wish I could wake up at 6am and blast music and be revved to go.
I'm such a night person - until I pass out at 11pm LOL so maybe I'm a mid-day, early evening person. Yea that sounds right. I'm awesome from 12-10pm. Those are my hours.
Ok, I'm babbling. Miss your blog! Glad to be hopping over here!
You're too funny Li! I use to consider myself a night person, but can barely stay up past 12. Oh, how things change. I wonder if I'll ever be a morning person, that would make life a bit easier.
DeleteThanks for visiting my blog! I am
Trying to write a bit more these days. I think my blogger app might help. However, nursing school is only going to make my life busier. :-)
I hardly ever do any kind of stretches before I run. I used to be better about doing them before speed work, but now I just do a 10-15 minutes of an easy job before getting in to the workout. I feel so silly doing most dynamic stretches, but I know they're good.
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