I'm not a fan of the music, but I'm not a fan of the music.

Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness Podcast.

Well in today's episode we pick up what we left off last time with Mark Ripeto.

This part of the conversation with Mark, I took a bunch of questions that I got from

Art of Manliness readers and took them right to him to get his input on it.

Really great stuff, a lot of cool insights. So if you are into barbill training and want to get more into it,

you're going to enjoy this session. So let's get started.

I solicited a Twitter for some questions from readers. I know a lot of our listeners are big fans of your work

and I had some specific questions that people were curious when they found out I was going to be talking to Mark Ripeto.

So one question was, should you stretch before a workout? Because people hear different things on that. So what's your take on that?

I've never, never stretched before I worked out. Now let me preface that. Let me back up.

I'll stretch my hamstrings out for about 10 seconds. And stretching is one of these things that's been investigated fairly effectively

in the literature. Stretching is an excellent way to reduce power production and reduce forced production.

If you do it prior to squats and deadlifts and Olympic lifts.

Here's the basic question. If you are flexible enough to do the range of motion,

the full range of motion barbill exercises that comprise your training and you're flexible enough to execute all of the movement patterns used in your sport,

why do you need to stretch? You don't. It's a waste of time. It doesn't help. Soreness doesn't alleviate soreness. It doesn't prevent soreness.

It doesn't prevent headaches. It doesn't prevent hangovers. It doesn't do anything if you're already of sufficient flexibility.

If you're not, obviously you need to stretch. If you're a mulletye fighter and you can't kick high enough, what you need to get where you can't.

But if you're not, why stretch? It doesn't do anything positive. It's a waste of time so I know we don't stretch.

I don't stretch before workouts either. I never have. I don't really know anybody that hasn't been influenced by the fashion of it. Back in the 80s, all those posters.

Here are the stretches you need to do every time. How do you need to do them? You know, we tried that for a while. Nobody got any better. It didn't save the help and it added 15 minutes to the process.

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