[tsomctl]

Stretch.

And stretch properly. Not some weak stretch like what you did in high school PE class. I'm talking about a deep stretch that you feel throughout your muscles, and still feel hours afterwards. There's a lot of overlap with yoga here. Anecdotally, I've had back pain that's progressively gotten worse from deadlifts. Doing a very deep pigeon pose stretched out my glutes and my back has gotten significantly better.

Check out ManFlowYoga on YouTube. Some of his videos are excellent, some are somewhat lacking.

[vinceguidry]

I'm not looking for half-baked advice here. "Deep stretch" does not connect mitigation strategy to threat. Like, at all.

Lifting is seriously dangerous. Not ruin-your-life dangerous, but definitely ruin-your-year dangerous. I want some real understanding of what causes soft-tissue injuries. Because even one more is out of the question.

Especially as I start getting older.

[arkades]

Stretching on nonworkout days is great for increasing mobility, done incrementally and carefully, since one of the major proprioceptive mechanisms that protect joints from injury respond to velocity of movement, not just total force applied.

Stretching pre-workout is a well-established mechanism for causing injury.