Dynamic stretches use repetitive movements that take your muscle and joints through their full range of movement. It involves actively contracting your muscles throughout the movement as opposed to passive stretching, where you just relax into the position.

Research has shown that you can improve your sports performance and help prevent injuries when you include dynamic stretches in your warm-up routine. This is because dynamic stretching activates your nervous system and muscles, improves your joint movement and muscle flexibility, as well as your balance and control.

When it comes to flexibility, dynamic stretches are not quite as effective as static stretches. However, static stretches have been shown to sometimes switch muscles off (if held for longer than 45 sec), which is not ideal if you're about to compete! This is where dynamic stretches can come to the rescue.

Performing a set of dynamic stretches after static stretches can wake your muscles back up, thereby ensuring that there isn't any negative effect on your performance (reference, reference, & reference). If having good flexibility is important for your sport (e.g. gymnastics) and you have to do static stretches in your warm-ups, I would suggest that you hold the static stretches for less than 45 seconds and follow it up with a good set of dynamic stretches and a sports specific warm-up.