Just a small tip: don't stretch before strength training. You want the blood to remain in your muscles for the duration of your workout. Warm up by doing some cardio instead.
As someone who has trained a lot of regular people, some are incredibly tight, to the point that they will not be able to perform movements correctly without stretching prior to the workout. Sure, they don't stretch right off the bat--a 5-10 "active warmup" is great--but sometimes stretching before a workout is necessary. It's not like we're dealing with elite athletes here; no one on HN is going for an 800 lb squat. And even in that realm, Jim Wendler of EliteFTS.com recommends static stretching prior to workouts.
Even better than stretching or at least as good, which I don't think anyone has mentioned, is myofascial release. Basically it's a self massage with a lacrosse ball or a foam roller. Mix a little bit of this soft-tissue work into your regular stretching and you'll see huge results.
http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gard...
For strength training, there’s evidence that stretching before a workout is counter-productive. Strength training requires muscles to contract tightly against a heavy weight, and loosening the muscle fibres by stretching them first reduces their ability to do this. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t warm your muscles up before strength training – just avoid stretching them first. If you want to include stretching in the same workout as strength training, it’s better to wait until after you’ve finished your weights work.
I typically warm up on the elliptical machine for 5 minutes and then for each muscle group I'm doing that day I start with a set of low weight/high reps to warm it up. After the workout I do stretch my hamstrings because I sit on my ass all day.
Look at results from this search: http://www.google.com/search?q=dont+stretch+before+weightlif...
Here's an example from : http://www.bodybuildingforyou.com/articles-submit/tanja-gard...
"For strength training, there’s evidence that stretching before a workout is counter-productive. Strength training requires muscles to contract tightly against a heavy weight, and loosening the muscle fibres by stretching them first reduces their ability to do this. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t warm your muscles up before strength training – just avoid stretching them first. If you want to include stretching in the same workout as strength training, it’s better to wait until after you’ve finished your weights work."
[Note: I did not refresh the page and see that user naner replied similarly. May I say: great minds think alike! Haha.]
pull your knee to your chest, quad pulls, lunges, high knees, butt kicks, shuffles, drinking birds, toe touches, karaokes, leg swings, others...
takes a little time, and sometimes looks a little funny... but is great for getting you warmed up.