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Stretching, when done the right way at the wrong time can absolutely be killing your gains. The issue is that many people do not know the difference between active and static stretching and the impact that doing one over the other before your workout can be having on your strength and ultimately your size gains. In this video, I’m going to show you why you should not do static stretching that you hold for any length of time before you train if you want to get maximum muscle growth and strength.
The issue boils down to neural efficiency. When you perform any movement, it doesn’t matter if it is something you would define as an exercise, your body has a stored pattern for accomplishing it. It does this in order to create movement efficiency. If I drop a pen on the ground and I bend to pick it up, your body doesn’t have to think about every single joint component of motion that is needed to get you down to the ground. Instead, it thinks of the “squat” movement in general and is able to instantly help you down to the floor without wasting any time.
When you perform static stretching of muscles that are going to be trained in your workout that day, you are negatively interfering with your stored engrams or motor patterns. While increasing flexibility and the length of a muscle can be a very good thing long term, doing stretches just prior to your workout that temporarily do this can have this associated downside that winds up costing you gains from your workouts.
The length tension relationship between muscles is something that you have that is unique to you and different from one muscle to the next. While not all length tension relationships are optimal, it is still what your body is used to and what is being used by it when calling on the stored motor pattern when performing a movement. Static or passive stretching before a workout will temporarily disrupt these patterns by affecting the actin and myosin cross bridging.
If you were going to use this method of warming up for a workout, you would then have to spend a significant amount of time prior to starting your training just to attempt to re-integrate the movements to better match up to the engrams stored for that movement pattern or exercise. In this case, I would suggest doing two or three light sets of each of the exercises you were going to do in that workout after completing the static stretching routine. This could add at least a half an hour to your workout when you account for the stretching and the re-integration.
There is a better way. You can instead opt to perform active or dynamic stretching for the muscles that are going to be involved in the exercises you are about to perform that day. These are movement stretches that take your joints actively into new ranges without ever holding for any length of time. The disruption to the muscles is greatly minimized and your ability to feel loose and perform at a high level is maintained.
That said, static stretching is still vital and has a place in your routine. The best thing to do is do your stretches for the muscles that you worked that day, later on at night before you go to bed. When you sleep, your body heals itself and the muscles that were trained tend to heal a bit shorter. You can lessen this shortening effect by performing the static stretches just before laying down. When you wake up the next morning you should not only feel more loose but you will likely have less muscle soreness as well.
If you are looking for a program that puts the science back in not just stretching but everything you do in your workout, head to and get the ATHLEAN-X Training System. See why today’s top athletes and performers are turning to this program in order to be in the best shape of their lives. Now you can too.
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37 comments
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Training is killing your gains
Stretching, especially passive stretching, just increase my accident rate by 100%. Stretching is bullshit.
I know golf. What's gahlf?
Just stretch every time and that becomes your baseline.
Im confused:
1) Isn’t “corrective-stretching” beneficial before working out since doing it in a bad (worse) position would be detrimental?
2) Isn’t confusing the muscles something that would enhance your gains? (Arnold always talks about “surprising” them)
You know he's right, static stretching before some physical activity is bad, I won't really get into it but it's actually better to do some Dynamic stretching before your workout, and then static stretching once your exercise/workout is complete to relax your muscles. This is something I learned from my "workout class"
Wow… I've never been so mad at myself. I've been doing static stretches before my workout.
Dynamic stretching(warm up)> Workout> Static stretching.
Also try to gain the range of motion of your following workout in the warm up to let your body know whtas coming.(Modified pushups before a workout including pushups)
Completely anecdotal garbage he's letting out. Studies are inconclusive about pre workout stretching, meaning there's no real world difference. Do what makes sense.
Static Streches Vs Dynamic Stretches🤔.. Ur Trying To Say That Dynamic Stretches Are Better Than Static Ones..?
Forward eye gazing 😅😅😂
I woke up the morning after a workout and stretched my back.
Gains eliminated
Sala ek bolta hai yeh karo toh aur ek bolta hai yeh galat hai . Ab suni toe suni par kiski
why gaining gains is killing your gains
Bro don't listen to him if you do it'll lead to injuries
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Gaining your gains is KILLING your gains!
What about a ten minute massage to loosen everything on spine,. On hydrobed before workout
I like how people like this video
Love the info., and the supplement pack. Seeing good gains in three months, and would lie videos on training for golf over 65.
Thanks so much for all you provide.
A squaaa as a squaaaaa
Lifting killing your gains
Water is killing your gains
Russell Kane has changed.
To have gain (muscle mass), it is enough to offer muscles a decent mechanical stress (lifting weights) which reaches 70-80% of maximum strength.
Stretching them prevents injury. It has nothing to do with GAINS.
Even if the stretching puts your muscles "out of the normal routine" and requires neural-pathways adjustments, so that you would perform less optimal… it would actually increase the effectiveness of the workout, simply by building more complexity to your brain-muscle neural connection. So that they are capable of more FLEXIBILITY and better adjustment to DIFFERENT movements, out of the routine.
Eventually leading to BETTER performance EVEN when the conditions are not optimal.
Thanks, thanks, thanks to that precise moment a video of this channel popped up in my right list of suggested videos and I noticed it. Literally a world opened up from that moment. Thanks Jeff for all your work.
I did a static stretch the night before it decreased all my efficiency is this permanent I hope so it’s pretty funny
This is actually very good advice. The only thing I have to comment is if you are in fact aiming towards flexibility, like you do martial arts and want to kick higher, pushing your boundaries like knowing you can't do a front splits but trying to do it anyways is a great way to achieve a front splits over a couple weeks. But if you are looking to do heavy squats don't waste your time on "stretches" do a few lunges and side lunges and maybe a plank or two totaling 5 minutes of time. Doing crazy long stretches only put stress on your CNS and you want your heaviest lift of the day to take the majority of your CNS's output of that day. Stretches put hell of a lot more stress on your body then you think. Just imagine when you stretch a rubber band enough it starts turning white and thin. Its heavy stress.
Not killing gains is killing your gains
So I am definitely not more formally educated than you and any stretch of the imagination nor would I even attempt in this post to allude to it.
I just know that after 30 years of exercise if I don't stretch between sets my tendonitis flares up and when I do it doesn't…
I'm going to have to disagree for myself personally and not for anyone else
Pondering how Jeff's weights got re-wracked all mixed up like that is killing my gains.
Galf swing
guys please do your stretches its just as important to a healthy lifestyle as strength exercises. not stretching caused me to get thoracic outlet syndrome. My fucking arms literally felt like they were gonna fall off due to loss of circulation until I was diagnosed and learned stretching exercises that helped reverse the condition.
Do you have to stretch before you do pull-ups and dips?
could you argue that confusing the muscles would be more beneficial for gains ? shocking the muscle concept ?
Wow you just fixed my whole workout process thanks jeff
I wonder how many dislikes this video has lmfao