Stretching Every Day?

[Lucas Dimoveo]

Hello people of GB,

Is it generally a good idea to do joint mobility and flexibility every day? I've heard conflicting ideas on this. I find that if I don't stretch every day my muscles are tight and it feels like I'll pull something. My wrists are somewhat weak as well and I often have to constantly attend to them because of vaulting. If it helps, I do parkour once or twice a week on top of strength three times a week. I am not sure if the impact I'm taking has anything to do with it.

Anywho, thanks for answering.

[Quick Start Test Smith]

I don't stretch every day and I frequently throw kicks above my head without much warm up. I think the key is to be strong in the full range of motion that you want flexibility in and to *occasionally* practice light dynamic stretches/"bounces" throughout the day. Your nervous system will adjust and your body will be used to the movements.

[Boban Ilievski]

If it is a very light stretching sessions, then you could do them every day. However in order to improve your flexibility you need more work, more harder stretching sessions, and doing them every day would be too much. For example I have two of those hard stretching sessions a week (Mon & Thu) and two lighter stretching sessions (Tue & Fri). I do them on the four training days, before and during the main exercises (inbetween sets).

Take a look at this thread too: https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/1120-frequency-timing-of-join-preparationflexibilty-work/#p9262

[Joshua Slocum]

You should incorporate some dynamic stretching as part of your warmup before every workout to make sure you're limber.

Static stretching, for improving flexibility, should be done several times a week. As boban said, the frequency with which you can do it is proportional to how intense the stretching is.