You DON’T Need to Stretch (NEW RESEARCH)

Did you know that there is new research available that shows you don’t need to stretch to increase flexibility and joint range of motion? In this video, I am going to show you how you can ditch your boring static stretching routine (that you’re probably not even doing in the first place) and can rep

hey Jesse you can stop stretching and so could you as a matter of fact what if I told you there’s some way that you could spend your time gaining flexibility that didn’t involve having to do this would you be interested well that’s actually where research comes to the rescue because in a recent study published in 2021 a meta-analysis of 11 different studies in over 452 participants showed that engaging in a dedicated strength training routine was just as effective as engaging in a daily stretcher team when it comes to increasing your flexibility and overall joint range of motion so what does that mean for you well I’m about to make your life a whole hell of a lot easier because I’m about to address the elephant in the room here let’s be honest you’re not stretching right now anyway are you you see when it comes to my priority list I’m going to work out I’m going to do my core I’m going to do some cardio and then maybe I’ll stretch and the first thing that’s going to get cut every single time when I’m a little bit short on time which is always is going to be my stretching if you’re like me you’re doing yourself a disservice because we know flexibility is important some have even called it the one true fountain of youth in other words if there’s only one thing you could do there are people out there that think it should be stretching but the truth is a lot of times the discomfort of stretching alone is enough to chase people away away from doing it at all and with no alternative well where do you go from there or if the idea of a separate stretching routine is enough to cause more of a time crunch in your already crunch schedule it’s just not working for you but if we can lean into something you’re already doing and I can show you a way to do it a little bit differently to get the results that you’re looking for well that would be actually the Holy Grail guess what I’m about to do that for you because I’m going to help you to modify the exercises that you’re already doing in your workouts to make them much more effective at increasing range of motion and flexibility and it starts right here with the basic exercise like the lat pull down when it comes to the lap pull down what you would do is incorporate a deliberate stretching set perform about five or six repetitions exaggerating the end points to maximize that stretch on the lats and get that full contraction on the way back and as you notice there I actually dropped the weight quite significantly here because it has nothing to do with the weight as long as there’s enough there to create that loaded tension that we’re looking for and as I get to that end range I’m just going to hold that sink into the stretch and allow it to open up my shoulders and back and increase the overall length of those lats over time overall you’re looking for about five or six repetitions with accumulation of about 30 seconds of stretch on this exercise now each of these five to six repetitions will be held for about five seconds in that stretch position so you’re basically accumulating is about 30 seconds of total stretch and this is actually nice because it sort of overlaps with one of my good friend Andrew huberman’s recommendation of how much stretching is actually required to cause a formative change that being said the other nice thing about this protocol is that it doesn’t conflict with what we already know could happen with static stretching performed before an exercise we know that that can sometimes limit or attenuate the output of strength and force generation if you do it right before a workout well this is acting more like a dynamic stretch because you’re only holding each one of them for those five seconds you’re kind of moving through those repetitions so it could actually be performed as a final set of an exercise that you’re already doing rather than having to go and carve out a whole separate stretching time and what I’m going to suggest is you take these common exercises from this video and start to incorporate them right away but don’t worry I’ve got you covered because I’m going to make a dedicated series here for the best way to do this on a workout by workout basis depending upon what muscle groups you’re training now it doesn’t end here because if I want to do this with the chest all I have to do is step into a crossover machine and then get myself into that position where I’m opening up the chest and you can see I’m deliberately trying to drop my elbows down a little bit and get my hands a little bit higher just to sink into the pecs a little bit more and get both the PEC major and minor on this and I come across all the way until full adduction and perform this as I recommended before for a total of about six repetitions remember it’s about 30 seconds of accumulated stretch on this exercise and we move on when it comes to the triceps we want to take advantage of the overhead tricep extension because it’s going to put us in that really good stretch position for the triceps but it also again finishes in that really nice overhead tall posture position that we’re all looking for so if we do this exercise the same way looking for those deliberate stretches in the bottom range of motion holding as we feel more and more comfortable in that stretch and then of course going into that full extension we have that opportunity to get really nice and tall at the beginning and end of every single rep now these are just being shown to you as representative examples that you can start doing right now if you want to string them all together into one little routine be my guest just understand that you’re not necessarily saving the time that you’re already spending on stretching however if you find it to be more enjoyable and therefore something you’re going to stick with more than something you already hate to do which is static stretching then that’s where the advantage is when it comes to biceps one of my favorite ways to do this would be on an incline bench in an incline dumbbell curl and you can see you can easily get into this nice stretch position because you can pronate the forearm at the bottom of every rep you can even get that triceps contraction I talked about that will enhance the relaxation of the biceps and allow for a greater stretch when it comes to the lower body one of the easiest ways to do this for the hamstrings and even the glutes is going to be an RDL but I went out for like a dumbbell version here because we know we can control the weight because remember we’re using lighter weights to do these exercises this is not about loading up to overload and create hypertrophy it’s about loading to create a loaded stretch you don’t really need a lot of weight to do that but the same protocol applies here I don’t really need to accumulate more than 30 seconds or so of this holding stretch position across the entire set now when it comes to quads I have to go back to one of my all-time favor anyway it’s the Bulgarian split Squat and as you’ll see here I’m actually getting bigger bang for my buck because I’m hitting both legs at the same time predominantly it’s going to be the one that’s kicked back up onto the bench because you’ll see as I sink down into that yes I’m getting a big stretch on my hip flexors and quads because of that fully bent knee position but I’m also getting the glute stretch on the other leg that’s out in front of me it’s just a good opportunity to go down with the safety of the floor there to catch me should I either lose my balance or get too fatigued but again it shouldn’t happen if you’re using the appropriate weights here but even when I c