Hey, EarthFIT fam! Today we’re gonna talk about stretching. We’re gonna talk about two types of stretching that often get confused. We’re gonna talk about dynamic stretching, and then passive stretching. Let’s get right into it. So we’re gonna talk today about STATIC – also otherwise known as passive stretching, and then DYNAMIC also known as active stretching. I’m gonna explain to you when you should do each of them, what some of the benefits are and what are some things to specifically look out for while doing them? All right. Let’s get into Dynamic Stretching first, because this is the one that you actually want to do before training.

Dynamic stretching is where we do a stretch, but we actually have to activate the muscles to control that range of motion. Some simple examples of dynamic stretching to get warmed up would be inchworms, 90/90, where we’re actually activating. 

So this is one of my favorite ones. If I wanted to stretch out my hip, yes, I could just kind of sit in this position here. I’m getting a good hip stretch, but if I wanted to really engage and have better mobility, that’s gonna help my workout. I can do things like really activate right now. I’m squeezing my glutes, I’m leaning forward. I can reach my back foot up, activate there. These are gonna fire up the muscles. I’m getting cramped right here… that is an example of a kind of a dynamic movement. Other dynamic movements could include things like an inchworm where we’re actually having to move our body through different deep ranges of motion that may not be accustomed to dynamic stretching… The real benefits of this are. They’re gonna increase your core temperature far more than a passive stretch would. It’s really gonna prime our body, put us in ranges of motion and give us active control that we need. 

It’s gonna activate the muscles we may be using in that training to further support and better our workouts. It’s gonna decrease our chance of injury and give us a great, better overall performance in the gym. So that is dynamic stretching.

Static Stretching. So static stretching is the one most people are more familiar with. This is what we did in gym classes in junior high. And in high school, this is more kind of when most people think about traditional like slow, steady yoga.

This is kind of what that is, and that would just be like a toe touch, right? Or we have a whole static stretching routine that we do here at EarthFIT Lady’s Island after training, you know, things like quad stretches where we’re just kind of staying in motion. I’m not really activating the muscle or doing anything to further the control in that range of motion. 

So, why is static stretching good? It’s gonna increase the blood flow. It’s gonna increase the recovery. It’s gonna help you lengthen those muscles. So you actually have the ability to get into deeper ranges of motion. So static stretching should be done after you train.

So to recap, dynamic training – what we’re gonna do to warm ourselves up really prime our muscles prior to training. Static stretching – we’re gonna do after training to lengthen those muscles to facilitate better recovery. So I hope this clarifies some of the issues you guys or questions you may have around stretching. If you have any other questions, reach out to us here at EarthFIT Lady’s Island. We’d love to make videos for you guys. Love to get you squared away on any of that. If you’ve found value in this video, give me a thumbs up. If you loved it, gimme a heart and as always, stay strong.