Static stretching has it’s place…  and it’s after working out.  It can be done as part of your cool down routine, but it shouldn’t be part of any warm up routine.  If you think about it, the whole idea of “warming up” is to get your body moving, to get your muscles warm so that you don’t pull any muscles during your workout.

Static stretching does mobilize your joints and stimulates the ligaments and tendons around your joints, but it doesn’t promote enough blood flow into your muscles to effectively warm them up.  What’s more, holding a stretch for a prolonged period of time elongates your muscles, tendons, and ligaments, which makes your muscles less effective at contracting.  And since you need your muscles to be ready to contract and elongate at vigorous rates as soon as you start exercising, static stretching should not be part of your warm up.

On the flip side, just doing jumping jacks or a light jog isn’t a good choice either.  Even though you’ll be stimulating your heart and get more blood pumping into your muscles, you’re completely neglecting to mobilize your joints!

So the question is, how do you mobilize as many joints in your body as possible, while getting your heart rate up, to promote enough blood flow into your muscles to get an effective warm up?

The answer… dynamic mobilization exercise.

Dynamic mobilization exercise combines the best of both worlds by mobilizing your joints through various stretching movements done in full ranges of motion, while utilizing your legs to increase your heart rate so more blood flows into your muscles.

In the video below, I’ll show you how to perform two really effective dynamic mobilization exercises that you can do as part of your warm up routine.

So the next time you workout, make sure to include these as part of your warm up routine.  It’ll get your muscles warmed up and your joints loosened at the same time. Once you start including these dynamic mobilization exercises, you’ll never go back to doing traditional (non-effective) warm-up routines again.