Stretching debate

When I booted up the Wii Active on sunday Ryan and Oliver were sitting on the couch playing ipad games. I was a little uncomfortable working out in front of an audience, no matter who they are. This is also why I hate doing workout classes, although it is easier in a room full of strangers than with just a single person you do know.  Anyway, as I began the workout Ryan looked up and said "wait, don't you stretch before working out?"

No, I don't. It wasn't part of the Wii Active program, and while I have added a short yoga wokout after I finish the Active workout, it honestly hadn't occurred to me to stretch before hand. When I was done with Sunday's program Ryan pulled out a couple of his workout/weightlifting books and showed me a few passages which stated that stretching before a toning workout will increase calorie burn, while also increase the effectiveness of the toning and muscle building. Hey! Great fitbytwitter post, I thought.

As I attempted to collect a few interweb sources to flesh out the post, and direct you to for further reading, I found that Google doesn't tend to agree with the above statements and, in some cases, directly refutes them with the assertion that stretching a "cold" muscle could cause injury. From what I can see the debate of "stretching before a workout yea or nay" seems to be one of those in and out of trend type things. So what say you? Do you stretch before working out or after? Or at all? Will you start now? Personally, I  feel like doing a short yoga workout following my wii active has helped to diminish some of the post-workout soreness, but I don't think I'll be adding much of a stretching routine ahead of time. Ryan persists in stretching before lifting weights.

On another note, normally I attempt to workout when M sleeps and O is doing "quiet time" in his room. A couple times however, things have not gone according to plan and I've had a little workout helper. I can tell you that jumping becomes a dicey proposition with this as my view. And he likes to try and help push the buttons during squats and when I crouch for Inline skating.


Then the Yoga routine begins and he adds some extra resistance training. This was my view during the downward facing dog. He anchored my leg to the floor nicely.



Heck, I can't touch my toes anyway, even when he's not trying to bounce on my knees.