What do you reckon to a good old stretching routing before or after exercise?
Back in the old days we all used to do quite deep static stretches of leg muscles for football, and it was seen as a sensible part of a warm-up. Failure to stretch would be asking for a groin strain. Nowadays, I get the impression that there isn’t a lot of evidence supporting this idea, and stretching pre/post exercise is not thought to prevent injury / enhance performance.
I don’t see it as something that has a definitive answer given the range of body-types and different activities, so not that interested in duelling cites that attempt to lay down the law on the issue. Just interested in people’s own experiences of what works for you.
My main sport is cycling, and in 20 years of riding and racing bikes I am 100% convinced that stretching pre-ride would be a waste of time, and maybe 90% certain that stretching post-ride is also pointless.
Cycling is well-known for introducing muscle imbalances, though, so the benefits of stretching over the long term to correct these are very clear. But for immediate on the day stuff, I have not found it makes any difference.
Generally, stretching hasn’t been found to prevent injury. However, since people tend to stretch too hard, that may cancel out any benefits.
Stretching does not warm you up. Warm up first, then stretch. Also, heavy stretching can slightly weaken the muscles for a time. Best to save that for after the workout/competition.
When I was still running, i always felt looser when I regularly stretched. Purely subjective.
I do consider flexibility to be a component of all-around fitness along with strength and aerobic capacity.
Long time (tho not in a long time) martial artist here. Not stretching will at best make you fail at most of the basic mid/high kicking stuff. At worst, you tear stuff and won’t be walking comfortably for weeks. I vote essential.
But that’s the specific demands of a specific sport. Most sports don’t demand that level of flexibility.
Gymnastics demands it, baseball doesn’t(except first base). Distance running and cycling don’t.
Years of martial arts, yoga & other fun stuff here… my take on this is that the stretches people do (particularly for martial arts) accomplish one or several of four things:
Loosen you up. Not as much as you’d like to think, and it’s still possible to hurt yourself if you push it.
Warm you up. Everybody seems to be agreeing that warmer muscles are happier muscles.
Strengthen you up. Difficult to get stronger and more flexible at the same time, because that’s not how muscles work, but if you’re breaking a sweat, you’re not stretching any more.
Systems check. Does this hurt today? How about that? Is this sore from that thing I did this weekend? Is there anything I should be avoiding today? Whoa, that hurt. No high kicks today, I guess…
For me its worth it. I took a warehouse job (much like a hard gym workout for 4 hours) at age 57 after way too many years at a desk. I really do the required stretches before shift and some micro-stretches now and then during my shift and I haven’t gotten nearly the soreness or minor injuries my coworkers keep complaining about. And my stats are better than most people including with most being half my age at this point or less. So its something I plan on sticking with to say the least.
Well I don’t really exercise but it really is essential for me to warm up and stretch before and stretch after a dance class, and it seems beneficial to warm up before and stretch after tennis.
I started running many years ago when the young guy metabolism slowed down. I really tried to do everything right, with stretching before and after as part of the program.
After several months I let the stretching slide and realized that it made absolutely no difference to me.
Now, perhaps 15,000 miles later, I can report that the lack of stretching still makes no difference to me. In all of these years I managed to pull a muscle in one cheek exactly once, and that was likely to me trying to run faster than I should have that day.
Stretching is to maintain range of motion, not for warming up. Loaded stretching is a hot topic in fitness to improve or maintain joint integrity, but I am not aware of any rigorous studies establishing anything one way or the other.
Stretching is a flexibility exercise. If you find that you can’t complete your desired physical activity due to a flexibility deficiency, then you should stretch until the deficiency is corrected. Otherwise, waste of time.
Obviously some people, like ballerinas, contortionists and gymnasts, need more flexibility than others, like hikers. But in general, stretching is recommended far more often than it is actually needed. I find it to be superstition more than anything, one of an endless variety of superstitions in the physical fitness field.
Warming up and cooling down, on the other hand, are important.
For me, its a waste of time. I get harped at by my gym staff to stretch, but they have never produced peer reviewed evidence that it does any good for the activities I do. Its the equivalent of people doing things ‘for luck’ or because “I was taught this, and never questioned it.”
I agree its important for people who need flexibility. …for me, its meaningless and has never produced a tangible result that I could notice much less measure.
I’m not as active as I once was, but when I was very active, pre-workout stretching was absolutely pointless to me. Post workout maybe, but even then, I generally didn’t bother with it, just walked after my run until my heart rate came down.
I agree with the bulk of the folks that stretching before exercise is not helpful.
However, as I get older I find that stretching as a goal for flexibility in life is needed. My old muscles just have more difficulty with bending over, reaching, etc and I need to stretch regularly just to maintain my range of (pain free) motion.
I don’t stretch before I swim. I do walk a couple laps in the pool just to get my body warmed up.
Sometimes I stretch DURING my swim. If my arm or back muscles feel like they’re not getting stretched by the swim in the right way, I go over to the wall and stretch them out. Basically I use my swimming as a way to work out the kinks in my body and sometimes need extra focus.
Like Phreesh, I stretch and I exercise, but they are separate activities. I find that if I don’t stretch for a few days, I feel like a statue. That happens whether i have exercised or not.
It’s probably more important as you age. As an example, assume you’re walking past a tennis court and a ball bounces in front of you. If you’re young, you can pick up the ball and throw it as hard as possible back into the tennis court. But once you’re 40-50, doing the same action is likely to cause you to injure something in your shoulder. You’d need to take some time first to warm up to the motion to be able to throw it hard without injury.
I don’t think the warm up needs to actually be ‘stretching’ to avoid injury. Doing the activity at a lower and less stressful intensity initially may be sufficient. That’s typically what we do in group classes. We initially spend 5 minutes on low-intensity movements that mimic the strenuous activity we will be doing later.