Right now I’m recovering from an over use injury which I commented on in detail in my unicycling over 50 post. I am looking for some advise on pre and post ride stretching routines.
I am interested to see what other people are doing. I have a tendency to just hop on and ride as well as after a ride just finish, throw my uni in the back of my truck and drive off.
Personally, I don’t stretch before the ride and I rather adapt how I ride in the beginning to warm up on the saddle (it can be riding around in the parking lot if going to ride downhill or hiking up the hill counts as warming up 
).
However, after the ride, I try to stretch the legs with my usual 3:
- Leg straight up on something
- Heel against the butt (hand on the ankle)
- Foot against a step’s edge with the back straight leaning slightly forward
I tend to do 10 to 15 seconds per sides a few times and most of the time mixing between exercises. If you have difficulties picturing one exercice let me know and I will search a picture to illustrate (but they are the most common exercises anyone could think of).
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Pre ride: No stretching for me. Evidence for static stretching (the classic “holding a pose for 30 seconds”) seems pretty clear that it does not help with injury prevention (if anything some studies suggest the opposite).
As far as I know some light dynamic stretching (actively going through the range of motion) is the current science based recommendation, with maybe some benefits to injury prevention but at the very least it hasn’t been shown to hurt.
Personally I tend to be bad about warming up too. I start my rides easy and ramp up the intensity slowly, but that’s about it for me. A mild warmup off the uni to get the blood flowing is however probably a good idea.
I don’t tend to stretch directly post ride (doesn’t seem much of a benefit from that last time I checked the research), but I will just do a bit of stretching through the week to feel better and maintain my flexibility. I just randomly collected movements/poses that I like over time.
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lol I can’t do that. Im waaay to stiff. Yesterday on youtube I saw a video of someone sitting on his knees then putting his heel to his butt and stand up on one leg. I showed my 11-yr-old daughter if she could do that and she just did it. I couldn’t even keep my balance balancing on 1 leg and 1 knee and it was as if I was glued to the floor trying to rise up on 1 leg.
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