I faithfully stretch before doing my workouts. But I hate it. I don’t enjoy exercising, and the time I spend stretching is time that I could spend doing just about anything else.
I was talking with my mother recently, and she mentioned in an offhand comment that there have been recent studies showing that stretching before (and after?) exercising doesn’t really make much difference. People don’t get more injuries because they haven’t stretched.
Now, my mother is a nurse practitioner, but she’s not by any means a specialist in fitness. And common knowledge that isn’t really knowledge floats through the medical community as much as any other.
So I ask the SDMB: has it been demonstrated that stretching is a waste of time? Or at least not as necessary as generations of gym teachers have led us to believe? I’m still stretching now, but if I find out that it’s unnecessary, I’m going to stop frittering my time away on gym mats.
There were some concerns about the research done on military recruits, and it was discussed in this forum. Apparently the researchers didn’t differentiate between injuries that stretching could prevent and those that it couldn’t. So injuries like broken feet were counting against stretching.
I will note that if you’re doing weightlifting, a lack of flexibility can slow down strength increases and lead to injuries, so it’s pretty important there.
Whenever I do ab workouts or bicep workouts I must stretch afterwards or the muscle becomes very very sore. But this is if you lift heavy weights I’m not sure about lighter ones.
I once read about a study that said that a group who stretched before and after excercising made more weightlifting gains that a control group who didn’t. I also read a couple places (I believe one was Bill Phillips in his Body For Life book and another was in a muscle mag) that first doing 1 set at half your normal workout weight was sufficient to warm-up those particular muscles. (I’m not sure that “warm up” and “stretch” are exactly synonymous in this sense. I mean, I believe that at least part of the point of stretching is to warm up the muscles, but there’s probably more to it than that. Perhaps someone else can elaborate on this.)
I still do a warm-up set, even after I’ve biked and stretched. Probably overkill, but when it comes to injuries, I’d rather play it safe. And, as I said, flexibility is important for strength.
I’ve always been taught that you do gentle warm ups (warm up your muscles slightly), stretch, do your workout, and stretch again. This knowledge, however, comes from very minimal soccer experience (2 years in middle school) and 5+ years of TKD. I don’t know about for heavy lifting, but I’ve always assumed you should warm up, then stretch, regardless of the exercise. AFAIK, you loose flexibility as you gain muscle mass, and stretching after a workout, when your muscles are very warm, not only prevents soreness (to a degree), but increases flexibility more. And the greater flexibility you have, the chance of pulling/tearing something drastically is reduced.
IANAD or any other medically trained person, and this is just my $0.02 based off of nothing more than my personal, subjective, unscientific observations. I play paintball, and during the course of play contort into all sorts of weird positions, mostly some variation of a crouch/squat. I’ve noticed a definate and distinct correlation (as have many of my friends) between stretching and any stiffness/soreness the day after. If I stretch at all, even no more than 10 or 20 seconds per stretch, only a few stretching positions, I am doing considerably better the next day. As far as I can remember this is as true now (at age 19) as it was a few years ago, and my 56 year old stepdad has similar results, even though he’s always more messed up the day after. Ahhh…youth!
There should be a contrast made here. Stretching should be mainly done to acquire flexibility, and increases in flexibility takes months to acheive. Flexibility prevents injuries, not stretching. Stretching right before an activity is essential, but only needs to be done lightly to losen the muscles/tendons up.
If you are inflexible, you could get injured whether you stretch or not. Don’t focus so much on stretchings’ short term benefits, it only has long term benefits, and some minor ST benefits.
Certainly, above all else, maintaining one’s suppleness adds to one’s quality of lifestyle as one gets older.
When we’re young, we’re all naturally far more supple than we are than when reach say, 60 years of age.
If there’s anything you should concentrate on in life, it’s a regimen of regular disciplined stretching - simply because it goes so far towards fighting off yucky shit like lower back pain and stuff like that. Your life, overall, is simply a better one if you remain supple.
Purely annecdotal, but Andre Agassi is noted for never stretching, or even taking a massage, and yet he’s one of the least injury prone pros on the circuit. Of course, he’s phenomenally fit, so that may be a factor.
Muscle mass does not decrease flexibility. That happens to be a myth. Lifting weights increases flexibility as long as you lift in the full ROM.
Warm ups are also not necessary. For lifting or running. If running before stretching out caused injury we wouldn’t be here today. Excuse me Mr. Sabertooth tiger, I need to do a calve, hammie and quad stretch before you start chasing me. Don’t want to get a cramp or tear a muscle. Or “Hey Ogg, come over here and help me pick up this deer carcass. Just a sec Bloag, I need to lift these smaller rocks first so I don’t get an injury picking up that heavy deer.”
Many of the elite russian lifters don’t do warm ups or stretch before a very heavy lift and injury amongst them is much lower than other countries that do stretch and warm up.
Not doing a warm up doesn’t seem to effect their flexibility. In fact most of the information I put in this post comes from Pavel Tstasoline’s stretching and flexibility book. “Beyond stretching: Russian flexibility breakthroughs.” Looking at some of his flexibility in the photos leads me to believe that he is pretty darn flexible.
I think the issue is whether by ‘stretching’ you mean ‘warming up’ or ‘flexibility exercises’. Flexibility helps prevent injuries, but it’s a medium-term thing; it doesn’t matter whether you’ve done any flexibility exercises that day or not, just how flexible you are after doing (or not doing) them over the past several months.
On the other hand, you should always warm up for exercising – get the muscles and joints warm and moving before working them hard.
(Of course, I have no medical or physiological expertise, other than having been through re-hab for injuries several times, but I did last night stay at a … well, no, not that either. Oh well.)
Ahh, so ~98 degrees isn’t warm? So raising them a degree or so really helps in what way? Just curious to this line of reasoning. It isn’t like our muscles were in the freezer before we started lifting.
I only have my personal experience to offer. I have been working out with weights for around 10 years. I only stretch after my workouts. Before I get started I always do a light warm up. My leg warm up is doing 3 sets of 20 deep knee bends followed by 3 sets of 15 with a selectorized leg press. By the time all that is done my legs are pretty warmed up and I can go on to doing heavier weights and less reps. I have never had a weight lifting related injury.
Because it’s come up: I’m specifically talking about doing some calf, other leg and arm stretches before doing 40 minutes on an elliptical machine and a round of 12-rep weight-machine exercises. (Then another round of stretching afterwards.)
I’m not trying to build muscle mass; I’m trying to lose some weight and stay in reasonable cardiovascular shape.
I don’t doubt that it’s fine to warm up before exercising – but I was wondering if it’s bad not to warm up before exercising. Basically, if I shaved 15-20 minutes of stretching off my exercise routine, would I be doing myself any damage, or is it no big deal?
(The long-term benefits of flexibility exercises are an interesting thing to know, as well.)
Oh, and I can’t find the thread ultrafilter mentioned that features earlier discussions of the military study. Anyone have a link?
