Jan
25
NOTE - Today’s post is based on large part on an excellent podcast I heard from Fitness Rocks. If you’re interested in Fitness Rocks podcasts, please go here.
Stretching
From the moment I started exercising, I heard a lot of talk about stretching. Some people said I should stretch before a workout to prevent injury. Others said I should stretch after a workout to maintain flexibility. I even got some advice on stretching that said it should be done regardless of your workout. What I didn’t get was anything that resembled factual evidence on the benefits of stretching. This means that I’ve usually avoided stretching before or after a workout in the interest of time.
However, I’ve recently become more interested in stretching after discovering that my flexibility was woefully low. I’ve been looking into things like yoga as a way of building flexibility but I haven’t managed to find the time to go to a yoga class. I talked about this with a coworker and she mentioned that simple stretching could be useful. I was interested and decided to do a bit more research. What I found was the following:
No Clear Evidence but Plenty of Common Sense
The first thing I found was that there was no clear evidence one way or another of the benefits of stretching. I couldn’t locate any studies or research pieces on injury rates or flexibility and how they were decreased or increased with stretching. So for those of you who demand solid evidence, the jury is still out on stretching.
There are however plenty of opinions by people who seem to know what they’re talking about and they all agree that stretching should be good for you. Their thinking goes something like this: many training injuries occur when you move a joint or muscle past its intended range of motion. Stretching seems to increase the available range of motion for muscles and joints. Therefore, stretching should lower injury risk by decreasing the chance that you’ll go past your muscle or joint acceptable range of motion. Seems pretty logical to me.
So, I Want To Stretch, Now What?
Ok, assuming you agree with that line of thinking, the question still remains, how and when should I stretch? In regards to when, the most common recommendation I found is to stretch before your workout, preferably after a short warm up. That means a brisk 5 minute walk followed by stretching and then your normal workout.
As for the how, I found a number of useful tips on what to do and not to do:
- To properly stretch, you need to slowly move the area you’re stretching until you feel tightness but not to the point of actual discomfort. That means if you feel pain you’ve gone too far.
- Hold a stretch for 15 to 30 seconds. Too little and you won’t get the benefit. Too much and you risk injury.
- Repeat each stretch twice if you have time.
- Don’t bounce! How many times have you seen people stretch by bouncing up and down? That’s actually going to increase your injury risk, so don’t do it. Just stretch that muscle slowly and gradually until you feel it tighten. Hold that position for 15 to 30 seconds and then slowly release. No bouncing!
Stretching Exercises
I looked around for online source of stretching exercises and the best one I found was this website for the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. Beside stretching, they also have a variety of good information, including this interesting section about injury prevention.
SummarySo, is stretching beneficial? Well, I couldn’t come out with a solid yes or no, but I did find enough evidence to convince me to try it. So yah, I’ll be stretching before my workouts from now on. I’ll let you know how it goes.
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Comments
One Response to “Stretching, Injury Prevention or Useless Waste of Time?”
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Many experts now recommend that you perform the majority of your stretching at the end of your workout, and rely on a light cardiovascular warm up at the beginning of the workout to increase your core body temperature.
I tend to believe in this theory myself, as I’ve participated in sports for my entire life without stretching before the workouts, and have never had an injury.
Thanks for the post!