If you feel like most people you probably think stretching takes too much time and cuts into your workout. Stretching does time and can be boring, but you should think of it is as part of your workout because it enhances your workout and helps you reach your strength and fitness goals.
Doug Seamans from Pride Conditioning has created a great video for us to show different dynamic stretches you can do before lifting kettlebells. These stretches are designed to warm up your joints and connective tissue which is something most people fail to do with only a few minutes of jump rope, squats, foam rollers or stick work.
There are a number of benefits to stretching: 1) reduce tension in muscles 2) increased range of motion 3) increased energy and blood circulation
All three of those contribute to a better workout, no matter what equipment you are using. We recommend adding all or just a few of these movements to your pre-workout routine in order to improve your strength and fitness.
Take a look at the video below, there are quite a number of stretches, you can pick and choose a few you like and then below the video are some tips that Doug wrote out for the various stretches.
This video shows how to do dynamic mobility work. If you are doing static hold stretches and not moving then your muscles are not being activated at all.
Doug learned a lot of this stretching from an Olympic lifter and coach, Stephanie Palocol. The squat warm up is from Ido Portal, some of the pipe movements came from Russian Kettlebell lifters and he learned this in Saint Petersburg from Anton Anasenko and Aleksander Khostov, the stretch on the rings Doug learned from Arseny Zernakov.
Some tips to help you out:
Before you start this warm up just walk around or jump rope for 2:00 or do some box steps, don't stretch cold muscles. On the walking part at the beginning, get those knees and kicks up as high as possible. On the squat portion, keep your spine straight and your chest up. On the ring portion, insert your hand down to the “heel” of your hand, do not grab the rings with your fingers allowing your wrist to bend back, your wrist should be straight. So your elbows should be as straight as possible. On the pipe overhead work, do not let your lockout go too far behind your ears. The back bend portion is very helpful for people who have trouble with their first dip in the jerk. On the pass through portion with the pipe, if your elbows bend while attempting to go all the way back to your butt, don't go all the way back, just back until your elbows bend and then go forward again. The stretch on the box with the plate, start flat and then drop the hips. This stretch is also good to do after a workout.
Through all of these movements breathe deep!
Remember! You can receive workouts in your in box from us each week! HERE
One of the questions customers frequently ask us is which training weight they should use, so we created a post about it you can read HERE .
About Doug:
Doug Seamans is the owner and head trainer at Pride Conditioning in Charlotte NC where he offers personal training for weight loss, strength and conditioning, kettlebell sport competition training, and group fitness classes. Doug has won gold in 2014 and silver in 2015, 95kg weight class in amateur 24kg long cycle at the AKA Nationals, he has also won gold at the European Championships in Saint Petersburg Russia in 2015 and recently won 5th place at the world championships in Dublin Ireland.
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