i like this warm-up that everyone hates

When I was a young and impressionable youth, sports warm-ups went like this: We jogged one lap around the field. Then we formed a circle with everyone facing in, and one of the players would lead the group in a series of static stretches: standing holding one foot bent behind your butt to stretch the quads, touching the toes, holding one elbow above the head with the opposite arm, holding an arm across the body, etc. No one died. Fast-forward to now, and people speak of static stretching like it’s punching yourself in the face.

The specific myth about stretching that won’t die is that “stretching makes your muscles weak.” This comes from one very old study, and what the study says is not “stretching makes your muscles weak.” The study says that when a person does a stretch, and then immediately afterward tries to do a high-intensity movement, they are not able to do that movement as well as if they hadn’t stretched at all. Many read this, and many concluded that stretching is dangerous. It doesn’t matter to them that there are follow-up studies that debunk that first study.

But here is the thing: This effect is not necessarily specific to stretching, based on this one study. Doing two things in quick succession is more work for any muscle than only doing one thing. More to the point, most people don’t, for instance, stretch their quads and then immediately try to jump three feet in the air. You stretch, and then you stop, you amble around, you drink some water, you load up your weights or you put on your sneakers or mount up on your electric camel or whatever it is that animates your physical existence, and then you start exercising. That’s plenty of time for a muscle to rebound and be ready for the next thing, negating the effect of however it was taxed two to five minutes ago.