Stretching and Muscle Care

[Grand Wizzard Alamar]

hey guys... I've been having this problem where I get injured somehow like every single time I play a running sport hard.
last week I tore 6 muscles around my hamstrings and couldn't walk straight for 3 days, then I did something werid thing with my arm and the upper left side of my chest is acting really strange... can't really explain it, but right now I pulled a muscle in my lower back and I can't run, sometimes walk, or sit down without it hurting... I'm icing it right now but the funny thing about these injuries is that I have stretched out before playing everytime, and I still get injured... maybe I'm not stretching enough though or I'm missing something...
So can anyone here help me out with finding some good stretching routines and ways to prevent muscle pulls and overusage?

Much appreciacted.

 

[spesmilitis]

Static stretching before exercise is bad. Only do static after your workout. Do dynamic stretching before a workout. Also, don't stretch until you are warmed up. Are you warming up correctly? You should take you body through all its natural ranges of motion and warm your core temperature 1-2 degrees.

How is your form during exercise? Never do spaztastic out of control movements. This is sorta hard to explain. . .Do extreme and fast motions and react quickly and instinctively, but always have control of what you're doing. Also don't use your groin or lowerback, use your hips and legs.

If you have joint problems looking into joint supplements including fish oil.

 

[mrRuckus]

The statistics on stretching before exercise show that it doesn't effect injury rates.

Warming up before exercise is what prevents injury.
Stretch after exercise for flexibility and if i remember right even being flexible doesn't lower injury rates even if 'common' sense says it would.

One example that even says stretching before exercise raises injury rates:
http://www.pponline.co.uk/encyc/0250.htm

I've never had any sort of leg injury in my life (other than being hit directly in the knee and blowing that out but that's nothing like a hamstring pull and all that) and all i do before say a softball game is walk around, do some body weight squats, jog up and down the foul line... take it easy during batting practice and put the joints through a full range of motion gently moving the bat around. Basically just warming up before the sprinting happens. Maybe there's better scientific ways and i just get lucky, but i've seen a ton of guys pulling up gimpy just running normal for no apparent reason and from what i can tell most people don't do a damn thing to warm up and at most stretch a little beforehand.

 

[Grand Wizzard Alamar]

lol thanks guys.. does anyone know of how to take care of a bad back?
It literally hurts to sit down and get up, also sometimes it hurts while I'm walking... and I definitely can't do much at the gym for awhile because of this..