Animals don't stretch before working out
And thusly we wrap up this nutty trilogy of observations from National Geographic.
I’ve never seen an animal stretch before chasing prey.
Partially because there is no time. They have a small window of opportunity, and saw some prey they could pounce on.
We’ve all seen domestic and wild animals stretch. Should we be stretching the way they do? Butts up in the air, legs straight, lower back is arched, head is up, arms are “overhead” relative to the spine. It does look similar to some yoga poses. On our anatomy, they would be stretching hamstrings, glutes, hips are flexed, yet into lower back and neck extension, and shoulders overhead. They only do this after waking, or standing. They only stretch once, for about three seconds.
Granted, they walk on four limbs, and we are bipedal, so our stretch looks different.
What is their workout? It’s usually killing things. Before they do that, they are not stretching.
What they are doing looks more like what we now call active warm ups. Active or dynamic warm ups are when you perform slower, easier sport movements across the court or playing field to warm up the muscles. Examples would include; walking on toes, high knees, skipping, butt kickers, cross overs, etc.
Click here to watch dynamic/active warm ups
I made this very short video to be under 2 minutes, because the other ones on YouTube might lose people’s attention. Ideally you would complete each exercise shown for 20-30 yards. This routine warms up muscles for better contractions, improves stability around the joints, and helps to prevent injury. There are hundreds of suggestions all over the internet.
For an animal in the wild this might look like muscle twitching, a slow crouch, stalking, slow jog. Or they may not have time to warm up at all.
It has been proven that too much passive stretching before a sprint or jump will decrease human performance.
What if a cat that was dependent on killing things, starved because their buddy said, “hey man, you better stretch before you run…”
So they stretch, and the mouse doesn’t, and they miss catching the mouse who is faster, and they starve.
In our case, let’s say it’s a football defensive back. We are the trainer, and we say to the player, “hey man, better stretch before you play…” The defensive back stretches passively (instead of dynamic warm ups) and is slower than the receiver, who beats him down the line, and they lose the game.
Karate and Gymnastics
Admittedly, animals don’t do karate and gymnastics either. I’m talking mostly about running sports here. There are times that we might need more flexibility for certain sports.
Is our lifestyle the reason we are so tight and animals are not? The animals don’t sit in chairs. They sit on the ground or hard surfaces like tree branches. We are tight from chair sitting. Especially in the hips.
The overall message here? Use active warm ups before working out.