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Started by Chris Phillips, June 20, 2016 · 5 Replies · 311 Views
I understand these stretch courses should only be completed 1/week but is it ok to perform a few stretches a couple of times/week? Specifically my hamstrings are really tight. Could I perform one or two hamstrings stretches throughout the week or is that too much?
Also, if I'm going out to play a sport, i.e. tennis, Is it ok to stretch prior to or after playing?
Hi! You can perform stretches throughout the week at submaximal effort. Just don't do anything as hard/far/deep as you can go or try to break personal records.
Most people here do submaximal stretching as part of a "daily limbering routine." I've just started my own daily limbering, with 20s-30s holds for areas I especially want to work on.
My rule of thumb is that if it feels good and doesn't make me sore/more sore, then I'm not over doing it.
Julia has pretty much covered it 
Thank You!
15 hours ago, Chris Phillips said:
Also, if I'm going out to play a sport, i.e. tennis, Is it ok to stretch prior to or after playing?
I would not do strenuous stretching before sport, especially weight lifting etc. Light limbering and dynamic stretching yes.
Personally I am very much liking "active" (either static or dynamic) stretching as part of my warm-ups or daily limbering.
Active stretching gets the muscles used to contracting (which is what they'll be doing while you move throughout your workout or daily activities) and because of their antagonistic nature, also gets them used to lengthening. It also pumps blood into them (helping to bring nutrients and clear out waste products) helping recovery, warms up the body, and builds confidence/strength in new ranges of motion (even if it may be very sub maximal strength).
Active stretching also has the benefit of not adversely affecting muscular strength (provided you don't go really hard with it or to exhaustion) that passive stretching has been shown to in some studies (which I realize is a hotly debated topic and depends on things like duration and intensity of the passive stretch).
Just my personal preference at this point in time though.