It’s great to see mainstream news catching up with the science behind exercise. Usually, I complain about how popular media get it wrong. But here’s a story from The Washington Post that confirms what you’ve heard here on worldfitnessnetwork.com for a while. (And of course, I have only been writing about this because I’ve read about the original studies in the scientific journals, so I can’t really claim credit!). You can read past articles here, here, and here. And related to recovery, check here.
I’ve reprinted the original article, which appeared online on October 30, 2009. It’s pretty long but well-written. The bolding of certain statements is mine.
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BY LENNY BERNSTEIN
Washington Post Service
It’s been a long, hard day at the office, and you need a good workout to blow off all that stress. But before you hit the free weights, the stationary bike or the elliptical machine, you spend 10 minutes carefully stretching all those stiff muscles, just as every coach, trainer and physical therapist has advised for as long as you can remember.
You won’t stave off muscle soreness.
You won’t perform better, except possibly if you’re going to do gymnastics or ice-skate. There’s some reason to believe you’ll do worse than if you hadn’t stretched.
“There is not sufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue routine stretching before or after exercise to prevent injury among competitive or recreational athletes,” concluded the National Center for Injury Prevention Control, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in a 2004 study that may be the most thorough look at the research on stretching.
Before you go out and tear a cold hamstring, let’s back up. Research and anecdotal information attribute many benefits to stretching: reduced muscle tension, improved circulation, pain reduction and management. Perhaps most important, stretching helps us maintain range of motion as we age, allowing older people to continue with the activities of daily living.
The question is whether “static stretching” — the most common type, which involves holding a muscle in one position for a defined period of time — has been misinterpreted, or oversold, as a preventive for what ails you.
“People believe all kinds of amazing things, and it changes every 10 or 15 years,” said William Meller, a physician and associate professor of evolutionary medicine at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who sees even less value in stretching than the CDC does. The merits of stretching are “not based on any science. It’s based on word of mouth. It’s spread by coaches, spread by trainers, [by] all kinds of different people who have an interest in pretending to be experts.”
According to Julie Gilchrist, a medical epidemiologist who helped conduct the CDC study, “it’s probably important that we maintain some norm of flexibility throughout our life spans, but I don’t think anyone has really defined what that [norm] is.
“Our belief is there are probably people who would benefit from stretching. But then the question is who should stretch, when to stretch,” how much to stretch and, most important, what benefits can be expected.
There was no argument about those benefits recently in a darkened dance studio at the D.C. Jewish Community Center near Dupont Circle, where instructor Lisa Glassman led 13 people in their 50s, 60s and 70s through an hour-long stretching and strengthening class.
Harvey Block, 78, who suffers from Parkinson’s disease, said stretching helps with his balance. Sally Berk, 64, said daily stretching relieves some symptoms of her fibromyalgia, a chronic condition that produces widespread inflammation of muscles, ligaments and tendons. Joan McKinney, 76, said she hates aerobic exercise and stretching has cleared up her knee problems.
Even for the elderly, “we don’t have the kinds of controlled intervention studies that we need to make a definitive statement about the benefits of doing flexibility exercises,” said Chhanda Dutta, chief of the clinical gerontology branch at the National Institute on Aging. “We’re not able to tell the elderly exactly the ways it can help them.”
Similarly, coaches across the country wouldn’t dream of putting athletes on a field, even for practice, without a battery of stretches that help them take the pounding and awkward landings of contact sports.
“As a coach, if I didn’t do that and somebody got hurt, I would probably have a tough time sleeping at night,” said Paul Foringer, the varsity boys’ basketball and junior varsity football coach at Quince Orchard High School in Gaithersburg.
Foringer’s athletes do a light warm-up, then spend 15 to 20 minutes stretching before each practice. “The more flexible the athlete is, the less susceptible to injury he becomes,” Foringer said. “It’s kind of common sense. If you take something that’s taut and tough and you yank it, you’re going to tear it.”
But that’s not what studies show. “Stretching was not significantly associated with a reduction in total injuries,” according to the CDC study, “and similar findings were seen in the subgroup analyses.”
In static stretching, “you’re taking the muscle to the point where it naturally wants to go, and then you’re taking it a little bit farther,” said Meller. That produces microscopic tears of muscle fibers and does nothing to prevent injury, he said. It also may weaken the muscle slightly, increase the possibility of injury and inhibit performance, according to him and the CDC study.
For those who want to stretch, it should be done after a warm-up or at the end of an exercise routine because warm muscles are more pliable.
Research indicates that warming up before exercise is more valuable than stretching. Specifically, Meller said, you should spend three to five minutes gently putting your body through the actions you’re about to perform, slowly increasing the intensity. If you’re going to play tennis, he said, swing forehands, backhands and serves, and run forward, backward and laterally before you hit the first ball.
The CDC reports that a warm-up that raises your heart rate and body temperature gets your blood flowing, nerves firing and metabolism increasing to improve performance and prevent injury.
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So to summarize:
- static stretching before exercise is not recommended
- static stretching after exercise is a good idea
- dynamic stretching/warm-ups before exercise are recommended
Do you follow this set of recommendations?
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November 24th, 2009 at 2:40 pm
From my own experience as an athlete for almost 40 years (Football, Basketball, Track & Field, Baseball, Bodybuilding, Boxing, MMA, and Powerlifting ’still a powerlifter and multi world champion and record holder)I find this article to be quite accurate. I always progressively warmup for my workouts with very little (if any) stretching and never past normal range or prolonged duration. My lifts are as high as at any age. At age 53 I’ve made competition lifts of: 810 Lb. squat – 600 Lb. bench press – 600 eadlift. All within the last year. I’ve had very few muscle or connective tissue related injuries in my career. My injuries have been concussions, cartilege tears, and broken bones. Contact/colision related injuries in the earlier contact sports.
November 27th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
I do 5 mins of static streching and then do a warmup set at 50% of the weight. Then I do my “real” sets. Also do 10 mins HIIT after the weight training and then do 5 mins of static streching again. Not had any issues till date so if it ain’t broken, should one fix it?
December 6th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
All I know is from personal experience from basically the perspective of an intramural level athlete who is now retired from organized sports. I am 43.
Stretching beforehand used to make me feel better. Logically, I thought that if your range of motion was decreased and you engaged in sports and put stresses on things, that you would have less flexibility, subject yourself to possible range of motion injuries, and decreased performance. I know that with dancing and martial arts, range of motion is very often part of the presentation of the routines. You don’t stretch and you try to hit the high side kicks or do the various floor splits, and injury you will have for sure. But, I also know that when you are getting ready to exercise where range of motion limits are not likely to be tested, stretching makes my muscles feel lethargic and it takes 5-10 minutes of steady low-level exercise to recover. I tell my music students to stretch lightly after warmups and after band practice when things are warm, but not before competing as this partial paralysis feeling actually makes fine motor control worse.
On another note, I have always wondered just what are you stretching? When you extend your range of motion by doing static stretches, what is getting longer? Muscle fibers, connective tissue, what? I have a theory that I have not heard and I will throw it out here. I have the theory that since I suspect that muscle fibers are somewhat less tough than connective tissue tendons (true or false?) that static stretching is working the muscles primarily and not the connective tissue. Why do I think this? Well, it is logical I guess from a materials mechanical properties point of view. But, how far can we stretch this way? Can we stretch the muscle tissue to full structural range of motion if we ‘just keep at it’? I have been doing the seated butterfly stretch since I was a dancer, age 6-12. I have a lot more inherent range of motion than other males my age by a lot. But, if I statically stretch twice a day, holding the stretch for 60 seconds at each additional range of motion gain, I can increase my range of motion a lot. These gains remain the next day, and months later, I just sit down and pop my legs down and they are very wide in range of motion without stretching. BUT, if I stop stretching this way for a month, and then go back to it, my range of motion is very diminished and it takes me just as long to make those gains again as it did the first time. So this is odd right? I have an inherently better than average range of motion due to gains I made when I was young that seem to be permanently set. I can make additional range of motion gains, by regular static stretching, but these gains are lost relatively quickly if I stop but easily maintained if I keep at it. Two levels of range of motion here, a permanent one that was acquired in my youth, and one that I acquire as an adult that is fleeting. Why is it fleeting? Very odd.
To add more to the story: I have been doing dynamic hamstring stretching since I was taught to do it that way in high school football, although I do not kick my leg back in the hurdler’s stretch position of old anymore. I have always been jealous of those runners who plop down on the floor and flop over and put their foreheads on their shins. Damn! I have been working at that stretch for years and best I can do is get about three fingers between my head and my leg. I stretch long and regularly, and still I hit the wall on range of motion and can not go past a certain point no matter what. Until I discovered dead lifts… I was having problems with my knees. I was lifting heavy weights on isolation machines (I know, but hey I am not a jock anymore OK?). But the isolation I figured out eventually was causing severe havoc with my knee joints, unusual wear and tear. So, I switched over to deadlifts to get away from isolation. I stretched out statically like always first, light. I did it all in proper form, light weights (maybe a 45 bar with one 45 on each side) and did three sets of 8. Felt pretty good. I was surprised. Never did it before. I finished my leg workout and then went in for my light stretching cool down phase. I sat down to do the hamstring stretch, bent over my leg, and my forehead went right down onto my shin, blam! No tension, nothing, right the hell down. That was a very large gain in range of motion for not having been able to do it, having worked on it for years. I asked myself why this would be. I could have physically ripped my muscles up allowing them to be longer like when you start to rip a shirt or something. Or perhaps I was stretching something else. I came up with a model that maybe since my muscles were under tension during this motion, unlike during static non-load bearing stretches, that my muscle was fighting being stretched hard enough that maybe the toughness was brought up to the level of the connective tissue tendons and they were getting a pull now a bit more. I have continued this exercise and my range of motion continues to be increased.
To test the theory, I do static stretching of other body parts, calves, groin, etc. I stretch out the way I always have, but then when I hit the wall on static stretching and my range of motion is maxed, I flex my muscle in that position isometrically, hard, and keep pushing. Two things I notice when I do that: First, the slight pain-like feeling of static stretching goes away, and second, my range of motion ALWAYS increases! Weird huh? Am I gaining something from this type of deal? Am I stretching connective tissue? Does the slight pain of stretching cause the muscle to try to protect itself by tightening up preventing full range of motion possible? Does taking the pain away by flexing, allow the muscle to relax this behavior and allow a bigger range of motion even though the act of flexing should be trying to shorten the muscles? This is all very weird.
So, I am not a doctor and I am not recommending anyone do anything. I am just throwing out my observations and if anyone has any thoughts about this, particularly physiology, I would like to hear them. Always trying to learn how stuff works.
BWall
Ohio
December 7th, 2009 at 11:26 am
@bwall – wow! Thanks for that perspective. Generally I believe you are on track, but it depends on the specific stretch you are doing. Some emphasize muscles, others emphasize tendons. And I know from painful personal experience, there are many specific stretches for the fascia in your feet. Though like you I am no doctor. Also, at least one study (http://journals.lww.com/nsca-j.....ng.40.aspx) has shown that dynamic stretching is more likely to lengthen the muscle than static stretching. And underscore what I’ve always said (which is consistent with this article) – static stretching is GREAT. But only AFTER you lift, not before.
December 7th, 2009 at 7:19 pm
guys im going to chip in a little on the stretching topic.
I like to try & simplify things.
Stretching. What/why & how are we trying to stretch?
What – Stretching of the tight muscle(or fascia which is now the debate)
Why – Incorrect muscle length impairs correct movement/mobility/flexibility
How – Static stretches ( These are usually held for so little time that they have no result in tissue lenghtening if any)
Dynamic warm – ups are great, but if one has very tight calves/hip flexors(being general here) they need to be addressed first (knees and lower back would try to move too much, to compensate for lack of ankle/hip mobility). Ive successfully used soft tissue work(foam rolling/tennis balls/the sick etc) followed with static stretching & dynamic warmup with my 40’s +. Ive found without rolling, that stretching is not as nearly as productive.
What are your views on soft tissue work?
Byron
December 7th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
p.s forgot the vital part…
Only foam roll/stretch what is tight and is necessary
Sry again if im a little objective D
December 9th, 2009 at 8:43 am
@breezy – Byron, I’ll defer to you on this. I’m not an expert on soft tissue work. But I think the whole idea of recovery and preparation is so important that I added it to the forum at http://worldfitnessnetwork.com.....up-prehab/ .