How to Stretch before Running

Video Transcript

"The next concept we're going to over is stretching. Stretching is important to stay loose and stay injury free. Usually you want your stretching to happen after a warm up and after a cool down, warm ups and cool downs taking five, ten, fifteen minutes of light effort. The first stretch we're going to over is the quadricep stretch, and that would be taking your foot and pulling it back to your glute with the same arm making sure not to cross over. The next stretch is going to be with the inner thigh, and it's going to be leaning to one leg, stretching out completely but not to overextend. After that, you want to turn to one leg and hold that position for ten to fifteen seconds. Next, you're going to be straight up and down and this will stretch the hamstrings out, and reach to your toes. The next stretch is going to be with the calf, and usually you'd like to push against a wall or something solid, and you keep one foot on the ground and extend the other one, and you push against the object. You get off the object, and then you extend on the knee all the way down and that will stretch the hip flexor. The last stretch that you should be concerned with is the IT band, which runs from your hip down to your ankle, and that's a common injury with a lot of runners. That is stretched by crossing one leg over and placing weight on the foot that is planted solidly underneath you. "