Stretching the Truth Before Exercising

Take yourself back to gym class. You're standing there reaching down and stretching towards your toes. You sneak peaks around the room to see how flexible your classmates are; finally, the whistle blows and it's time to break into teams and play the game of the day. After all, you are all stretched out now, so athletic activity is safe. Or is it?

Unfortunately, static stretching (the act of stretching a given muscle and holding it for an extended length of time), which many of us consider common sense for injury prevention, is simply ineffective before athletic performance.

Any time we exercise, there should be a definite objective goal towards which we are striving. When we stretch, the goal is typically to get loose, or to warm up before more strenuous athletic activity. Well, contrary to common belief, I'm going to explain to you exactly why stretching statically immediately before exercise is a terrible idea. In fact, static stretching before athletic activity can hinder performance.

So why do we do it?

In the past it was believed that static stretching allowed muscles to lengthen, thus providing the athlete with an increased range of motion without risking injury. The latest research is proving this theory to be unfounded. Recent research has shown that static stretching will not improve true range of motion; rather it will increase pain free range of motion.  

In exchange for this added pain free range of motion, the athlete's performance is negatively affected and the injury risk is increased. While it may go against everything you have heard before, this claim can be explained fairly simply. There are advantages to limiting range of motion in athletics, and there are advantages to experiencing pain when this range of motion is exceeded.

I'm going to use an example of a sprinter to further illustrate this principle. World class sprinters do not stretch and hold their hamstrings past the range of motion that they will use in competition on the day of a meet. The reason for this is the preservation of a principle called the elastic component of muscle. The elastic component of muscle defines a given muscle's ability to lengthen and shorten without injury. When we stretch a muscle statically, we reduce its elastic component for a short period of time immediately following.  

Don't believe me?  

Try this experiment. Hold your arm our to the side and have a friend use one arm to try and press it down to your side. Then once you have proven your friend is not strong enough to move your arm, stretch your shoulder by holding your arm across you chest for about 15 seconds. Make sure you feel the deep stretch in the outside of your shoulder. After 15 seconds retest the resistance challenge you just did with your friend. Feeling weak?

Let's get back to our sprinter. The most successful sprinters in the world are the ones who generate the most force between their feet and the ground with each stride (provided that the force is generated in the direction the runner wants to go). Most of this force is created at the gluteal muscles (your butt) and the hamstring muscles (the back of your leg), as they are the strongest muscles of the leg and are most responsible for stabilization of the knee respectively. Maintaining hamstring muscles that have not lost their elastic component ensures that the sprinter's leg will fire into extension with the most force possible.

To better understand this concept, think about what happens if your hamstring is tight when a friend tries to stretch it for you. Very quickly your leg does everything it can to snap back into neutral because its is uncomfortable for you. This is the same thing that happens during gait for a runner.  

Another visual is that of a rubber band. The tighter your pull a rubber band the more force it snaps back with. However, if you took that same rubber band and held it in a stretched position for 30 seconds, like we do our muscles, the ability of that rubber band (muscle) to snap back with any significant force is reduced. Your body understands this principle; it is the reason pain is experienced when we ask our bodies to work at high levels in expanded ranges of motion. The pain we feel in our muscles is a protective mechanism.

You might be wondering what you should do before athletics now if you shouldn't be stretching statically. Look out for my next post in which I will help define the proper warm up. If you have already experienced an athletic injury, you should see the appropriate professional before allowing the condition to worsen.

Take a few days to let this concept sink in. Have a good day,and we'll talk again soon.