When I was in HS I was on the dance team, and in the summer we'd have practices that ran 6-8 hours every day. Every practice began and ended with a 30-minute stretch routine designed to prevent injury and increase flexibility (it worked; nobody ever quit the team due to injury when I was on it).

I can remember only bits and pieces of this routine 18 years later. It's not like yoga; I'd guess it's designed more for dancers.

Basically I haven't seen stretching/flexibility addressed much here but I've noticed as I've been working out my muscles are tightening up and I'm not as flexible as I was beforehand. So I want to incorporate 20 minutes of stretching into my daily routine; I'm doing some ad-hoc now and I always feel better afterwards.

Does anyone have a good stretch routine (preferably illustrated) that they can share here? I'd appreciate it a lot!

Thanks!

Never, ever, ever ever ever, stretch before exercise. This increases risk of injury, and decreases performance.

Always perform an activity-specific light "warm-up" before exercise (ie. if you're gonna bike - bike, if you're gonna bench press - bench press) if possible, or, alternatively, a general "warm-up" such as jogging, brisk walking or jumping rope. The idea being this is to get a light sweat going as a result of having warmed the entire body. This decreases risk of injury, and increases performance.

Stretch after exercise, or, ideally, on days in which you perform no other exercise.

Since most static stretching is dumb to do and sucks, I highly recommend you look into dynamic stretching. Being as I don't have time to write you an essay on the subject, here's somewhere someone else already did.

Tell me why it sucks; otherwise it's just an opinion.

False. Your not knowing why a statement of fact is true does not make it an opinion.

And, quite frankly, that your reply should be as it is offends me, so I'm not going to bother. ^_^

Well Focus, as we all know you are an extremely opinionated and assertive fellow. When you express your opinions so forcefully, it's natural for other people to wonder why you believe the way you do.

Basically you can't say "this is dumb and it sucks" without someone asking you why at some point.

So, Focus...why is it dumb? Why does it suck?

I like static stretching. I don't use it, however, preceding performance. Well I should say I usually don't use it preceding performance.

I don't stretch before workouts, but I do warm up beforehand.

When I stretch I also do a warmup, or I stretch right after I've done maybe 10-15 minutes of housework like laundry, sweeping, etc. I figure that's enough to get me warmed up so I'm not stretching "cold" muscles.

I've noticed that the more active I've become, the more my back hurts. I must be doing something wrong...but what? I've added ab work into my daily routine to try to strengthen my abs to take some of the strain off my lower back; carrying that extra weight with weak abs can't be helping matters.

Lower back pain can be caused by many things. It's hard to say what could be happening given the complexities of all things affecting the back. Doing a lot of crunches probably isn't your answer though.

I'm not doing a whole lot, just starting off slowly and doing what I can handle. I don't think ab crunches will fix the problem, but I hear that having stronger abs can take strain off the back. It probably won't make things worse as long as I'm careful with form.

Today my back is REALLY bad. A good 20 minutes on the elliptical usually makes it feel better, but standing around and chatting like I did with a friend last night makes my back really ache. It's a pain in the ass, I hate having a bad back. It sucks, it's been that way ever since I can remember, and I want it to go away.

In some instances crunches can actually be detrimental to back pain. You probably heard that strengthening the core could help chronic (and even) acute back pain. The core is comprised of a heck of a lot more than your abs.

This is not scientific or anything just something that has worked for me because I have a bad back due to an auto accident with a grabage truck about 4 years ago. Try some inversion. I do this on a large body ball, you know where a lot of folks do crunches and stuff? Lay across the ball upside down with your feet on the floor and arms over your head, making un upside down 'U'. That will decompress your spine and relieve some pressure. About 2-3 minutes post workout helps stretch out the back, core and legs. Also relieves tension on the neck. Solely my opinion and that of my chiropractor.

Hope to help!

As crazy as it sounds, heavy lifting has completely cured my chronic back pain. After squatting and deadlifting for a few months its pretty much gone. I am now convinced that mine (and others) back pain came from babying it. I went years of having back pain the next day after pretty much any activity. Hanging Christmas lights, going to a concert, doing yard work. Anything and everything hurt my back. Especially things like shoveling and manual labor. Now I can Have a 7 ton weight lifting session and feel just fine the next day. I spent 4 days last month digging and working on an above ground pool. No pain at all.
Dr. couldnt fix it, chiropractor couldnt fix it. Drugs couldnt fix it.

Weight training which I'm sure any of them would have advised against is the only thing that worked.

Might work assuming her back pain is caused by the same issues yours is.

Happens often, believe it or not.

In your case, this probably means your back pain was caused by weak extensor muscles, such as the muscules of the lumbar and glutes. Weak extensor muscles commonly lead to lower back pain.

Squats and deads certainly do a good job strengthening these muscles.

This "core" term is a new one to me. What exactly is the core? I'm guessing it's the muscles of the torso, not simply the abs.