[vl]

There are few things they don’t tell you about weightlifting:

- stretching is critical and takes time, without stretching you’ll eventually injure yourself.

- eventually you’ll get some minor injury and will have to manage that and wait for it to heal.

- start by getting a coach to specifically learn good from and find your max weights for different lifts. Strictly control trainer’s desire to add some non-core exercises, once good form is established, dismiss the trainer.

[shakestheclown]

Can you point me to a study that shows stretching has a statistically significant positive impact on injury rates?

I know it's the common school of thought, but the studies I've read have found it was beneficial for flexibility, ROM, and soreness but no statistically significant impact on injuries or performance (data is mixed positive and negative for performance).

Anecdotal data is useless, but I've been lifting relatively heavy for years with little to no stretching with no ill effects. I do use warm-up sets but no other warm-up/stretching techniques. However, I am definitely open to changing my routine when the data supports it.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1250267/

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15233597

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.525...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15076777

[vl]

Well, my personal take, based on experience, is this:

You have to have enough range of motion for the lift you are doing, if you lift and don't stretch, muscle tends to shorten, and eventually you are not going to have enough range. This leads to two problems:

1) Potential over-stretch under load and injury, which will require time to heal.

2) Pain in joins, like knees or shoulders. Goes away once you start stretching.

If you do some other additional activity which gets you through full range of motion, like yoga or some active sport, then there is really no need to do extra stretching, otherwise, for me, stretching is required.

[sn9]

Lifting is basically weighted stretching. You can't train a movement and lose mobility for the range of motion you're training.

If your training has at its core multi-joint compound exercises, you shouldn't have to worry about your mobility.

[blunte]

Most people can’t distinguish a good coach from some buff person with confidence and a track suit. There are surely more bad coaches than good ones.

For this audience, I would recommend reading/scanning StartingStrength.com, or the book of the same name by Mark Rippetoe.

[dewote]

Do you know of any recommended stretching routines?

[vl]

I just do stretches for the muscles I'm training.

This is good book:

https://www.amazon.com/Stretching-Pocket-Book-Bob-Anderson/d...

This strap is really helpful:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00065X222/

[jplayer01]

Agile 8 and Limber 11 are the most common ones I've seen. The r/bodyweightfitness subreddit also has a decent routine.