Best Stretches Prior to Squats/Deadlifts?

Bigger Stronger Leaner
21

Try stretching your hip flexors (half kneeing stretch) a few times during the day. I don’t like stretching them right before squatting or deadlifting, makes things feel weird, you need your hip flexors to function for both of those lifts and stretching right before can inhibit them to some degree.

For hamstrings you can use a band, belt, rope, whatever, and lay on your back, put one leg up and the other out straight, loop the band/whatever around the ankle of the leg that is up and pull it towards you. I tried doing that before deadlifting before and it didn’t have any negative effects unlike stretching the hip flexors, but you could probably just do it a couple times a week far from training.

Before squatting or deadlifting I do some goblet squats, focusing on going extra deep, to warm up my hips. I use a 25lb plate. About 8-10 reps before squatting, 3 sets of 8 before deadlifting. Otherwise I feel kind of stiff and squats with a barbell don’t feel right until I have about 3 plates on it. I actually do those every day, and sit in the bottom of the squat for a bit.

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22

Literature is for pencil necks!

Go to any gym, game, meet, race, or practice. You’ll see runners stretch their calves, Weightlifters stretch their wrists, gymnasts stretch their lats, and on and on…

They’re not doing this shit to do worse on the stuff that counts!

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23

Just because hamstrings feel tight doesn’t mean they need to be stretched. This simple activation exercise will do wonders to prep the hamstrings for loaded stretching.

24

this isn’t because your hip flexors are tight, I promise you.

Stretching isn’t the smartest idea pre-training because:

  • It does not effect the length-tension relationship of muscle
  • Effects of stretching don’t last longer than 15 minutes
  • Stretching actively reduces force potential
  • Stretching switches your body further into a parasympathetic or “rest state”
  • Stretching does not reduce injury risk
  • Range of motion does not correlate to injury risk

If you want to get really nitpicky about it, deadlifting looking like a fishing rod isn’t guaranteed to cause you injury, as long as you load and progress workload slowly enough (back pain, esp. disc herniations are a load management issue more than anything else).

Your hamstrings are likely “tight” all the time because that is the point at which your nervous system/brain has decided you have the most potential to produce force from the hamstring and are least likely to get injured.

If you just tug on those poor hammies until they turn into some floppy wet meat condom do you really think your brain is going to keep you there?

Fuck no.

You just reduced your force output potential and placed the body into a position where it already feels weak and unsafe.

The only reliable way to get around this is the change the length-tension relationship of the muscle, shifting what we call the “optimum length” (that is, the length of the muscle at which you can generate the most force) to longer lengths.

The only reliable way to do that is to train.

The best exercises to do that are RDLs, seated hamstring curl variations where you lean forward in your seat, and nordics.

Do those instead of stretching

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25

Why not both? Long-term: Is it going to be detrimental to finish a weightlifting session with static stretching? My understanding is no, but you’re more actively read up than I am by far.

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26

No drawbacks, but there are zero benefits to post-exercise stretching so to me it’s just a waste of time. I’d rather see lifters use those 10ish extra minutes to do extra hypertrophy work, some aerobic conditioning, or take longer rest periods (which is my favourite option)

27

At the risk of a thread hijack: this is a statement you make solely with regards to lifters?

I know that you coach: if you have an athlete engaged in a sport where mobility (beyond the needs imposed by the big four) is a boon for them in their sport, do you stand by the statement still?

And, if you were to reply “yes” is that because you assume they’re doing static stretching after their sport? Or is it because you’d rather see them do PNF stretching?

To be fair, I know these are murky waters as more often than not people use mobility/flexibility interchangeably. Therefore, to be absolutely clear, with mobility I mean active access to range of motion. Not passive.

To cement a specific case, I’ll be an egoist and use myself: in rock climbing being able to go into a full side-split can be a killer tool. Hell, I’ve seen athletes kick straight up, to catch their toes on rock above their head to be able to rest their hands.

But unlike martial arts or gymnastics practice rarely is there a coach nor are sessions structured. People are at their own behest much like with people in the weight room.

But here’s where my own knowledge ends, is there any benefit to pursuing passive flexibility and progressively turning that range of motion into something that’s actively accessible or should it always be trained “actively”? I could passive stretch every day but I don’t think I could PNF stretch more than three days a week and those contractions could conceivably eat into recovery?

Man, I’m going to stop making excuses and start doing my PNF after weightlifting again. It just takes so much time after the initial steps of progression.

28

No at this point it’s for everyone I train. Like you go on to ask in your post, the only people who I work with who passive stretch are the people who want to passive stretch, and they only do it if they’ve already done the active range of motion work I’ve prescribed. Keep in mind I don’t prescribe AROM to everyone, just participants in sports which require a threshold capacity of AROM like swimming or rock climbing.

Absolutely.

Pretty much. I won’t necessarily use PNF stretching but it’s one of my tools. Primarily I will use techniques from FRC (Functional Range Conditioning) which is a serious of active range of motion drills dubbed CARs (controlled articular rotations), PAILs and RAILs (progressive/regressive angular isometric loading), and end-range holds. These techniques are available for most joints.

There is a very expensive certification where they instruct these drills, but most of them are available on YouTube.

I see passive ROM (PROM) and AROM as different skills. Improved AROM improves PROM, but improved PROM does not improve AROM. Additionally, large deficits between AROM and PROM (where PROM is more than 10-15% greater than AROM) are associated with heightened injury risk. Moreover, tissue “length” changes from passive stretching rarely last longer than about 15 minutes, whereas changes from AROM drills can last hours to days.

Taking that into consideration, I genuinely do not see an advantage to passive stretching for anyone except for individuals with true soft tissue contractures. However (and the literature shows this), these people need to stretch for literally hours per day to actually improve collagen depositions to fix contractures.

Respectfully, I disagree. Keeping in mind that no-one is doing a full FRC routine for every joint in the human body, it is more than feasible to conduct FRC drills for 1-3 problem areas once, if not multiple times, per day.

By far, this is the rate limiter for these types of activities. For example, I use CARs for the shoulders and hips at the end of skills training for my volleyball players, and it easily takes 15 minutes.

The way I see it though, 15 minutes of truly productive work is far better than 5 minutes of stuff that (in my opinion) won’t get you very far.

29

Didn’t read the below replies but you can consider some ergonomic things like a standing desk or forget what it’s called but a chair that doesn’t put u in a lot of hip/knee flexion. In principle I think getting up for 5 mins every 30mins to an hour will be plenty. Enough to break up the sustained postures

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I’ll dig through your post history to learn more about CAR. I think you posted a video once. Thank you for the thoughtful and elaborate reply

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31

No worries man, appreciate the discussion.

Here’s a good video for CARs

I just wanted to add that the fact that FRC/AROM activities take so long is the very reason I am so strong on strength training as a primary means to improve range of motion.

If I’m able to improve qualities like force production, increase joint integrity and give somebody access to important positions, I’ve hit the jackpot.

Viewing exercises through lenses including “strength at length” concepts (very well demonstrated by Vernon Griffith), and by considering the skeletal re-orientations associated with exercise (as taught by Bill Hartman, Gary Ward and others) as they relate to gait and breathing allows me to identify and program these types of exercises.

32

Sounds fine to me… Ive always just lifted lighter sets to warm up and stretch… them after a few, get into it… So far no injuries for me. But what do i know i could be doing it wrong as well

33

I’m really enjoying this discussion and learning a lot. Thank you, all of you.

Perhaps this weekend, I’ll video myself beginning at a light weight, maybe 225-315, and then working up to a heavier weight, maybe 500, post it and see what everyone thinks and they’re recommendations.

For what it’s worth, I have shitty levers (stumpy arms and long legs), so I can’t alter those, but maybe my setup is just a complete clusterfuck? I’ll let all of you be the judges.

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34

Start with the bar, mate. If its DLs, do RDLs to warm up until you hit ~50-60%

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35

I’ve always loved goblet squats pausing for 10 or more seconds while pushing knees out with elbows. Then follow up with overhead squats, should be good to go after those two.

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Stretching The Agonist Muscles

Agonist Muscle are the muscles employed in an exercise.

Antagonist Muscles

These are essentially the muscle on the opposite side of the working muscles.s

Bench Press Example

Agonist Working Muscles: Anterior Deltoid, Pecs, and Triceps.

Antagonist Non-Working Muscles; Posterior Deltoid, Lat’s and Biceps.

Pre-Stretching The Agonist Muscles

Research show that Pre-Stretching the these muscles around 15 seconds before the exercise can produce more force; strength and power.

However, stretching them 30 seconds or longer, dampens force production; decreases strength and power.

Pre-Stretching The Antagonist Muscle

Research shows that stretching the Antagonist Muscles prior to an Agonist Exercise increases force production; increase strength and power.

That because the Antagonist Muscle operate like an emergency brake on a car. When performing an Agonist Exercise, it’s similar to driving your car with the emergency brake on.

Essentially, stretching the Antagonist Muscle amount to releasing the emergency car brake.

In a Bench Press, many lifter pull up on the bar prior to Bench Pressing. Unknowingly, they stretch the Antagonist Muscles, which allow them to produce more force in the Bench Press.

Lombard’s Paradox

The lower body functions a little differently.

Lombard’s Paradox means that in a Squat, Deadliff, etc., both the Agonist and Antagonist Muscle fire in the movement. That mean the Quads, Hamstrings and Glutes are innervated in getting the weight up.

With that in mind, stretching the posterior chain prior to a Squat, Deadlift, etc. should be kept to around 15 seconds to ensure the greatest force production.

Exception To The Rule

As with everything, there is an exception to the Stretching Rule when it come to Hypertrophy
Training.

Research by Dr Jake Wilson determining that stretching approximately 30 seconds after each Hypertrophy Training Set increase muscle mass.

Training Objective

When it comes to stretching, the Training Objective is the determinate factor in your choice of the various stretching protcols.

Recommendations

  1. Strength/Power Training Days

a) Antagonist Muscle Stretching is effective at increasing your force production in Agonist Exercises.

b) Short Agonist Stretches (15 seconds or less) appear to increase strength/power in an Agonist Exercise.

  1. For Hypertrophy Training, stretching the Agonist Muscles after and Agonist Exercise for 30 seconds appear to increase muscle mass.

Kenny Croxdale

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37

Great info Kenny!

Paradoxically, you’ve gone from my antagonist to my agonist.

38

You pretty much said the same thing in your post. :slight_smile:

Kenny Croxdale

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