Warm-Up for Stretching
In order to avoid injuries, you should always warm-up before stretching. A good warm-up consists of a short pre-joint warm-up, a joint warm-up and a muscle warm-up. Unless you didn't sleep or sit before your workout, you don't have to do the pre-joint warm-up. When I am talking about a joint warm-up, I don't mean traditional joint circling (eg: when you press your toes down and circle your ankle on the floor). Joint circling is ok, but you should not apply pressure and go though the full range of motion. When you do a joint warm-up, you basically want to lubricate your joints. So if you squeeze and twist them around, you will not warm them up, but wear them out. When you do the muscular warm-up, you muscles and tendons get ready. I recommend a joint warm-up of 3 to 5 minutes and 10 to 15 minutes of cardio before you start stretching. Find more info about stretching and exercises at stretching main.