(dance music)
- What's up, elite THENX athletes?
It's Chris Heria.
Welcome to another video official THENX.
Today, I'm gonna be telling you something
you don't wanna do before you start working out,
and once you're able to fix this,
you're gonna start performing a lot better
and making a lot more gains through your training,
and that one simple mistake
is doing static, long stretches
before you start your workout.
What I mean by static stretches
is static holds for long periods of time,
generally around 30 seconds or longer.
In fact, if you're doing static stretches
before you start training,
that may actually be doing more damage
than helping your athletic and muscle performance.
Our muscles are very much like a rubber band,
and for a rubber band to be at its maximum performance,
you wanna make sure that that rubber band
will have tight tension and good elasticity.
By holding a rubber band out to its fullest extension
for a longer period of time,
we have lost the power in its tension,
and that is exactly what we do to our muscles
when we take long static hold stretches
before we start working out.
We need our muscles to have that tension and elasticity
to have the power during our workouts.
If we already stretched all of that out,
you're gonna be a lot weaker,
you're not gonna have that power
during your training session.
In fact, in some cases,
that can even lead to injury,
but I'll save that for another video.
So, although you generally don't wanna
be doing static stretches before you start your routine,
you still definitely wanna warm up
and stretch properly before you begin your workout.
The way we'll do that is with dynamic or active stretching,
where you're not actually holding a position
for longer than 30 seconds,
but you're doing more of a movement-based stretching.
This type of active stretching
is gonna positively influence your power,
speed, endurance, flexibility, and strength performance
when used as a warm-up.
Now, when it comes to training specifically,
everyone's goal is different,
so maybe there are some times
when people might wanna do some static stretches
if that's what they're particularly working on that day.
But generally, if you're trying to have
optimal performance in your workout routine,
you wanna stick to dynamic stretches
before you start your workout to warm up
to keep the elasticity in your muscles
for the best performance during your workout,
and when you're finished with your workout,
that is when you want to start doing some static holds,
generally 30 seconds or longer.
There is when you'll see a lot more benefits
to your static stretching.
In fact, when you finish your workout routine,
and then you start doing static stretching,
you're gonna begin to release
a lot of that lactic acid buildup
that you gained through your workout.
It's also gonna help reduce cramping,
and it's also gonna stretch out all those muscle fibers
that you just worked on while training,
which will help your muscle repair process.
You should know that when your muscles are repairing
is when you're actually making gains,
not when you're working out.
When you're working out is when you're actually
tearing and breaking down your muscle fibers
so that they can grow back bigger and stronger.
It's in that growing phase
is when you're actually making those gains.
That's where static holds after your workout routine
can also help support the muscle development.
Now I'm gonna show you guys a dynamic stretch and warm-up
that you should do before every single workout,
every single day.
We're gonna go through all the muscles in our body,
starting from the top, all the way to the bottom.
If you ever need a warm-up before starting your workout,
come back to this video and follow this routine.
So, let's get started.
For the first move,
I like to choose something
that's the least strain on the body
and something super low-impact
so we can just get right in.
We're gonna go up with our fingertips,
down with our hands.
When you come up, get on your tip toes,
get a nice little stretch.
(dance music)
Make sure to push your chest out
and try to be as tall and long as possible.
All right, now let's swing our arms in a circle.
Now we're working on our shoulder mobility.
Let's go the other way.
All right, let's have two hands in front.
Now, this is gonna be a little tricky.
One goes up and one goes down.
Let's see if you guys can do this one.
All right, now the other way.
All right, now we're going to start
with our forearms, wrists, and fingers.
We're gonna start by pulling our fingers back
just like this.
Now, you don't wanna hold this position for too long,
because then this is gonna be a static hold,
and if you can do little pumps
rather than a long hold,
this will also work a lot better.
Now let's bring our hands down,
give it a little hold, some little pumps,
and then we're gonna bring our wrist in,
give it a little hold, little pumps,
and then lastly, we're gonna twist our wrist,
so our wrist will be stretched in every direction.
All right, next hand.
(dance music)
All right, shake those off, guys.
Let's put our hands together, give it a little roll.
All right, now we're gonna move into our neck.
Let's lift up.
Down.
Give it a full range of motion.
Now left, right.
A lot of times, the neck is what holds
a lot of the strain in your body,
so you wanna make sure to really
stretch out that neck really good,
especially, oh, there's some cracks, right there.
Especially if you're trying to prevent injury
and you're trying to have maximum supportiveness.
All right, let's do a little roll.
Now, if you hear little cracks
and adjustments being made, that's great.
You wanna make sure that's not hanging around
while you're training.
That's the whole purpose of warming up
and stretching your body, is like a car.
As soon as you turn the car on,
if you just take off without giving your engine
a chance to warm up,
eventually, the car's engine
will not be working to its optimal performance.
Also keep in mind
when you're going through these different motions
that you're going soft
and you're not going super hard at the beginning.
This is the next one.
Start off soft, and then give it some light pumps.
All right, other arm.
(dance music)
Over the head.
Some light resistance.
All right, so, do the elbow and the joint right here.
Okay, let's twist side to side,
stretching our back, your delts.
Core.
All right, we're gonna have our legs
a little wider than shoulder-width apart,
and we're gonna push forward in our hips
and lean back, stretching the core,
lower back, your back, lats, hips, and inner quads,
and just hold this for a couple seconds
and then come forward.
Now we're pushing our hips back
and flexing our hamstrings and our calves,
as well as our lower back.
Right, come back up,
and we're gonna push the hips to the side.
You should feel that in your inner thighs.
Bring your hand over,
and you should feel it in your obliques.
All right, other side.
Okay, let's do circles with the hips.
You should feel it working all the ligaments and muscles
around your hip area.
Go the other way.
All right, now we're gonna go all the way down,
touch the ground, give it some light pumps.
Grab one side.
Other side.
Come back to the middle and bend one leg.
Come down.
Give it some nice pumps.
Other side.
All right, come back up.
We're gonna hit our outer quads and hamstrings.
Come down on one leg.
And the other leg.
(dance music)
All right, let's make a lunge position.
Feel the glutes, hamstrings, quads, core, hip flexors.
All right, let's bring our leg up
for the hip flexors, glutes, and hamstrings.
All right, now the opposite way.
You should feel all that in your quads right there.
Other foot.
All right, let's bring up one leg
and work the mobility in your knee,
giving it little circles one way
and little circles the other way.
Moving on to the mobility in our ankles.
Do little circles one way, circle the other way.
Other foot.
All right, let's come up to this wall right here.
Stretch out our calves.
Put your foot up against the wall, heel on the ground,
and lean forward, some light pumps.
Other foot.
All right.
All right, lastly,
we're gonna make it down to the floor,
my favorite move, right here, butterflies.
Put our feet together, hold by your toes,
and just let those hip flexors relax
and move your knees so that you have motion
in those hip flexors,
so you can warm them up.
There, I just heard another crack right there,
so there we go, getting our body warmed up.
All right, so, typically after this,
I would go right into a warm-up,
something like jumping jacks,
mountain climbers, and burpees.
Those three exercises, three rounds, 60 seconds each,
or exercises just like that,
about two or three in a row.
That's generally a whole body exercise,
and that gets your heart rate up
instead of a super hard exercise right off the bat.
There you have it, guys.
This is how I stretch right before
going into a workout routine.
You wanna do this stretch every single time
before you work out,
so come back to this video
and play it right before you get into your workout routine.
And remember, if you wanna increase
or at least maintain your performance in the gym,
then you wanna do dynamic stretching
before you start training.
Save your static stretches for after you finish training.
Now, that doesn't mean that it's any less important
than active dynamic stretching.
In fact, the more you train your static holds,
the more you will increase your flexibility,
mobility, and range of motion,
which is gonna get you a whole lot stronger
and perform a whole lot more in the gym.
You just wanna make sure that you're doing it
after you're done training
or on a day where that's specifically
what you're trying to train.
So, with that being said,
thank you guys so much for watching.
Definitely smash that like button if you learned something.
Share this video with a friend
that's trying to stretch right before their workout routine
and make some serious gains,
and comment down below
and let me know what you want the next video to be about.
In fact, if you comment within the first 30 minutes
of any upload,
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Check out the new weight vest colors
dropping at chrisheria.com,
and I will see you at the LA Fit Expo
in just a couple days.
Definitely pass by the booth so I can meet you
and you can pick up some THENX and Heria apparel.
Before I go, for everybody asking about the music
that's on the THENX and Chris Heria channel,
I'm gonna be putting all these tracks up on my SoundCloud,
so go ahead and give me a follow on SoundCloud,
and you'll be able to get the music from there.
Don't forget to check out my new single called Patient.
It's available to buy and stream on Apple Music,
Spotify, Tidal, all the platforms,
and I will see you next Sunday.
Mad love, peace out.
("Patient" by Chris Heria)