Introduction

Dynamic stretches for legs are often neglected by many people who exercise. These stretches should be performed in your warm up. The benefits of doing a dynamic warm-up is that keeps the core tempeture of your lower body up, while stretching. It also prepares the body for the types of movements and speeds that you are going to do in your leg workout. Flexibility boosts performance, improves posture and reduces the chances of getting an injury. Gerald Smith investigates how to use dynamic stretches for legs to reduce injury risk.

Perform a jog before you start your stretching

Finding time to train can often be difficult. With the precious time we do have we want to turn up, run and go.

However, you are missing a key part of your work out, if all you do is run. Dynamic stretches for your legs and flexibility training in general has been shown to:

• Increase performance.
• Improve range of motion.
• prevent injuries.
• Increase core temperature.
• prepare the body for running.

Dynamic stretches for legs | 9 dynamic stretching exercises to help prevent injury

There are research papers that question the value of stretching for injury prevention, but there are also some universally accepted facts on what type of stretch to perform before running.

Dynamic stretches for legs | 9 dynamic stretching exercises to help prevent injury

Why Should You Do Dynamic Stretching?

What could happen if I don’t use dynamic stretches?

To miss stretching is foolish! You significantly increase the chances of injuring yourself without warming up. Your goal should now be to become better at following a dynamic running stretch routine before each workout.

Dynamic stretches….. What are they?

Dynamic stretches are ballistic movements that both stretch and warm up your muscles at the same time. Dynamic stretches f have so many benefits like:

• The ballistic movements charge up your muscles that you are about to use for your run.
• They are fantastic for increasing the range of motion of your joints.
• Your body awareness will increase through using dynamic stretches.
• Your body will be more awake, which will allow you to improve performance.

Why are dynamic stretches for hamstring, quads, abductor, adductor better then normal stretches?

Over the years dynamic stretches for runners is the go to method for warm ups in favour of performing static stretches.

This is because many studies have shown that static stretching as part of your warm up has no affect on performance.

Dynamic stretches for runners take the joint through a large range of motion quickly like when you perform a high kick.

The large range of motion places a stretch on the muscle and because it’s performed at the speeds similar to how quickly you move during running it acts as a more functional stretch compared to static stretching.

The research into dynamic stretches for runners shows that it is important for speed events, but dynamic stretches for runners is still functional for distance runners.

Should I do dynamic stretches in my cooldown?

The dynamic stretches  I will share with you in tis article are the best type of stretching to perform at the start of the work out.

However, static stretching is better for changing posture and developing range of motion, so it should be performed at the end of a work out.

Static stretching is when you take a muscle to its full range of motion and hold for 15 seconds to over one minute.

An example of this is bending over to touch your toes, and as you feel that burn in the back of your legs you hold that position.

How do I add dynamic stretches like leg swings, hamstring stretch or glute stretches into my workouts?

This is what you need to do!

Perform a warm up jog or walk for a short distance. Five minutes will be long enough.

You need to do this short run in order to increase your core temperature and muscle temperature.

The dynamic stretches you will do will also increase this as well while elongating the muscle and supercharging your nervous system.

However, it is not a good idea to go straight into dynamic stretches without the muscles being warm as this can cause damage to the muscles.

Once you have finished your mini warm up perform these dynamic stretches.

Here are 9 Dynamic stretches for a leg day warm up or pre-workout stretch

1. Dynamic hamstring stretch

2. Dyanamic hip abductor and adductor stretch

3. Running dynamic hip abductor stretch (open the gates)

4. Dynamic hip flexor stretch

5. Butt kicks

6. Dynamic knee hug stretch

7. Alternating mountain climber stretch

8. Lower back dynamic stretch

9. Windmill hamstring stretch

Conclusion

As you can see the benefits of performing a dynamic stretching routine are numerous. You will reduce the chances of injury, prepare your body for the workout you are about to do and increase blood flow to your legs. These stretches will not take a long time to perform. These stretches are particularly good if you are about to do explosive training like plyometrics, sprinting or weightlifting. However, they can also be good for runners and regular gym users who are about to perform a leg day workout. Give these stretches a try and let me know how you get on.