Which stretches can be harmful

When it comes to stretching, cold muscles are considered risky since "you can potentially strain, pull or tear a muscle if forced into a stretch without being warmed up," says Norvell. She likes to compare stretching cold muscles to a frozen rubber band.

However if a rubber band is warm it can be tugged or pulled and move with greater ease. The rubber band would still have limits, however it would have greater range of motion warm," she explains. Norvell recommends dynamic stretches, or stretches that you do in motion, at the beginning of your workout after the warmup, of course.

One of the benefits of dynamic stretches is that they are more controlled movements that "don't force the body beyond its range of motion using bouncy movement," says Heather Marr, certified trainer. Examples of dynamic stretches include arm circles , walking lunges and leg swings , according to Marr. Ballistic stretches are a type of stretching that uses "rapid, jerky repetitive movements to produce a fast, high degree of tension inside the muscle," says Marr.

She doesn't recommend ballistic stretches for most people since they can be forceful and make you push past your own range of motion, which can lead to muscle or tendon injuries. I don't recommend any of these stretches for the average person," says Marr. How you do these stretches is key, since both the butterfly and trunk lift can be done safely as a static motion instead of as ballistic movement. Static stretches are stretches that you hold for a period of time, while the muscle is extended, says Marr.

Examples of static stretches include an overhead tricep stretch , a wall bicep stretch and a stacked-leg glute stretch. You should do static stretches when your body is warmed up, ideally at the end of your workout. Some are founded in sound scientific research, whereas others are mostly based on antiquated and uneducated conjecture.

However, as study techniques have improved, so has the understanding of the most harmful stretching methods. Because doing it wrong can cause both minor and major injuries, here are four harmful stretching techniques to avoid:. The old hurdles stretch, where one leg is paced straight out in front of the body and the other leg is bent underneath the body, typically results in knee pain. This is because the leg behind the body places a dangerous amount of stress on the stabilizing structures of the knee and may lead to ACL or MCL injury.

You will often see people holding a stretch for 30 seconds or longer. However, maintaining a stretch for more than 15 seconds in counterproductive, actually decreasing the strength and range of motion associated with the stretched muscle group. The most effective way to stretch any muscle group is with proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching, or PNF. Proper PNF stretching involves holding a stretch for 10 seconds, releasing it for 10 seconds, and repeating the same stretch for another 10 seconds.

You will notice an immediate increase in range of motion of at least 20 percent on the second stretch. And we have a question coming in the chat, Brad, are you okay if I put you on the spot a little bit? Emily : I love your questions you all, thanks. I forgot to say in the beginning of this interview, please, we want your question. So, this is a great one Palmer is saying, and this is for so many of us.

Palmer is saying, do you have a stretch for forearm or arm for that chronic mousing or chronic typing, etc. So, anything for the forms and the risks or the arms that you can show us real?

Brad : Yeah, for sure. A lot of the times I get asked to create like a full body routine and I always steer away from that. Firstly, because of what I spoke about before with people having different tight spots and imbalances.

So, for example, if you have an imbalance, a flexibility in balance somewhere in your body and we just stretch everything. Your shoulders are rounding forward. You probably feeling some pain in your upper back and neck. So, someone can look at you and find out where your tight spots are and your imbalances are, and then you can work on those specifically. A lot of times what happens is we have a lot of restrictions, not necessarily in the muscles themselves but we can have quite a lot of restrictions in the actual joint and the joint capsule.

And a lot of times that can lead to that sort of pinching or numbness or tingling sort of feelings. So, we need to be aware of that. So, simply holding your hand up and one hand right over the top of the other, make sure you grasping all your fingers there, getting a good grass there and just reaching down.

So, I can just push up against my hand, hold that for about five or six seconds, relax. And then we can just move a little bit deeper into the stretch.

And we can do that a couple of times, typically anywhere from sort of two to four times. Now the opposite to that is just some extension. So, just opening up the hand, again try to get right over the top of those fingers maybe you put your elbow down on a bench or something and just use your hand to pull down this way.

Let me just move down here a little bit and just pulling down on your hand this way and same again, if you just try and push up like this, push up with your hand, but hold it still push up for five or six seconds, relax and then let your hand go a little bit deeper.

And then again, just pushing up into your hand for five or six seconds, three, two, one, and relax. Warning here be careful doing this one. And as I said before any tingling or pins and needles or anything like that, you want to back out of the stretch shake the joint out a little bit, little bit of traction, just to loosen up that joint a little bit and then move back into the stretch.

If you still have problems with it, then avoid that stretch altogether. And this gets right through the forearm, right through the wrist, right into the hand as well. And from here, we can also do our little contraction technique. So, we can like go and pull on our hand back away and this hand is going to hold it and stop it from moving.

So, it get to the point where we feel some good tension. We push away, contract away three, two, one, relax and just go with that little bit further. Work on recovery and rehabilitation before moving onto specific stretching exercises. If however, the individual is healthy and the area to be stretched is free from injury, then apply the following to all stretches.

The stretch above has a reputation as a dangerous, bad stretch and should be avoided at all costs. So why is it that at every Olympic Games, Commonwealth Games and World Championships you see sprinters doing this stretch before their events? Firstly, consider the person performing the stretch. Are they healthy, fit and physically active?

Are they elderly, over weight and unfit? Are they young and still growing? Do they lead a sedentary lifestyle? If so, they should avoid this stretch!

Secondly, review the area to be stretched. This stretch obviously puts a large strain on the muscles of the hamstrings and lower back. Or, physically fit and healthy, injury free individuals.