Stretching

[rowingpun]

http://www.iawr-connect.com/training/stretchingawaste/

Tweeted by Nancy Clark. I was talking with a sports trainer recently and he said how muscles need to have some tightness to protect themselves during high exertion. I know personally, stretching makes my back not hurt like hell. Warm up thoroughly before, stretch lightly after?

[caustic]

++. Stretching is basically tugging on your muscles, causing microtears. bloodflow is increased because it's a response to damage, not a response to more energy being needed for work. Warming up with range-of-motion exercises and light resistance stimulates increased bloodflow as a response to needing energy delivered to the muscles, allowing them to warm up and relax without the damage of stretching.

[Long'n Strong]

I know personally, stretching makes my back not hurt like hell.

That's a good thing, isn't it?

[black night]

Stretching's effect on back pain is likely due more to balancing spinal alignment & blood-flow put out of balance by rowing in a bad position than by some beneficial mechanism related to muscle lengthening. Rowing in a bad position is primarily a consequence of being weak or having poor motor control (and maybe bad rigging), both of which can be easily fixed by well-programmed strength training.

IMO, if you are strength training like you should be (a la Rudern: squats, deadlifts, chins, jumping, snatches if you know how) and hitting the proper positions/ROM on those, you should have few structural problems. It is FAR more effective to increase "flexibility" through full-ROM strength training than by static stretching.

My formula: MobilityWOD as a means to hit/keep hitting the positions that I need to hit doing full-ROM compound lifts in the gym + proper rigging when I row = no more back pain and a long arc through the water.

My $0.02

[petermech]

I you are not flexible enough it will affect your rowing form. Should know how flexible you should be for rowing with certain stretches so that you can have a goal to get there.