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126

When I was a kid in the middle / high school gym, the gym teacher taught us you stretch before working out. Used the elastic band example. Called anyone retarded who thought otherwise.

The school had the region’s top wrestling team and the weight room was top of the line and they took it seriously.

I’ve start and stopped working out many dozens of times. When you start up, you’re most vulnerable to pulling a muscle.

I’ve started up again by not stretching first. And started by stretching first. Every time I don’t stretch first on that first session after a break I’m basically guaranteed to pull one muscle and 50% likely to pull a second or third. If I do stretch first, only 10 or 20% likely to pull one at all and it’s much more milder.

When I was a kid in the middle / high school gym, the gym teacher taught us you stretch before working out. Used the elastic band example. Called anyone retarded who thought otherwise. The school had the region’s top wrestling team and the weight room was top of the line and they took it seriously. I’ve start and stopped working out many dozens of times. When you start up, you’re most vulnerable to pulling a muscle. I’ve started up again by not stretching first. And started by stretching first. Every time I don’t stretch first on that first session after a break I’m basically guaranteed to pull one muscle and 50% likely to pull a second or third. If I do stretch first, only 10 or 20% likely to pull one at all and it’s much more milder.

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[–] • 2 pts

Neither. My regimen begins with Zhàn zhuāng and Shi li. Followed by the Xiao Zhou Tian & Da Zhou Tian (Lesser & Greater Circulation) meditation to circulate the chi that arises. Wu Qin Xi comes next. None of this requires any warm-up, yet the Five Animal Frolics provides excellent warmup to the more rigorous practices that follow. Kung fu teachers that enforce warmup exercises are quite clueless as to the nature of these things, and I suspect it is only intended to waste class time on useless shit.