Knowing how and when to stretch properly is just as important for preventing injury as well as improving performance.
Let me start with a question. Say you have a bag of rubber bands in the refrigerator for safe keeping. Would you take one of the bands and stretch it to its maximum straight out of the cold refrigerator? What do you think might happen? Will it develop some micro tears, maybe tear completely? Not of much use now is it? So, if you wouldn’t want to do this with a rubber band, you probably wouldn’t want to do this with your un-warmed-up muscles either.
As a personal trainer I often have new clients ask me what the correct heart rate training zone should be for fat loss. I have recently read message boards and forums with claims that to lose fat you should stay in the 120-135 bpm zone. The rational comes from the fact that under low level activity our physiology uses much higher percentages of fat as a fuel source. While maintaining this pace for 20-30 minutes will render benefits in weight loss and conditioning and is a good course for older participants or those with restrictions, the fact is the caloric expenditure is too small.
