Error: Stretching statically before dynamic exercises.

If you try to make a fast, dynamic movement immediately after a static stretch you may injure the stretched muscles, and the more strenuous the stretch the more likely the injury. (Stretching is strenuous when you do it at the pain threshold and it is light when you feel a sensation of stretch, but not pain.)

Two good reasons not to do static stretches before exercise according to Shrier (2000):

—Even mild static stretching can damage muscle cells.

—Static stretching increases pain tolerance. In the words of Dr. Shrier (2000), “It does not seem prudent to increase one's tolerance to pain, possibly create some damage at the cytoskeletal level, and then exercise this damaged anesthetized muscle.”