What is stretching good for? Well, most people would say it is good for warming up, preventing injury, preventing muscle soreness, and maybe performance enhancement. That seems like a pretty good list right? Well contrary to popular belief, stretching is not good any of the reasons listed above.
As some of you may know, static stretching is not good for you before performing any kind of exercise. It actually might do more harm than good, since your body is not already warmed up. Research has been done on static stretching and there is no evidence that it “warms up” your body at all. The way to warm up your body is to perform physical activity, which requires your body to burn calories and work up a sweat. Ok, but what about warming up and then stretching? Is that still useless? Well, once you properly warm-up with a light jog or any form of light exercise before doing an activity, what is the use of stretching? Is it to prevent muscle soreness or injury?
Studies have been done on Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), and as far as we know there is literally nothing you can do to prevent soreness. As one commentator put it, “Only soreness can prevent soreness.” (I also wrote a post about muscles soreness a few weeks back.) As for injury, numerous studies have found that stretching before doing an activity has no correlation with being less frequently injured afterwards. Although stretching may reduce very specific cases of injuries, there are some better ways to spend your time than stretching. According to Paul Ingraham, five better ways to prevent injury are to warm up, cultivate coordination, relax, play smart, and mobilize. The full article is here: http://saveyourself.ca/articles/injury-prevention.php.
Though only some people really believe it, stretching does not enhance your performance at all. An Australian research group in Perth performed an experiment in early 2009 where they tested runners’ sprinting times with and without a stretching regimen between sprints. They found that those who did not perform static stretches actually got a faster time than those who did. It is common for some trainers to believe that stretching is good for increasing flexibility first and then training for strength and coordination with a better range of motion. Actually, that is backwards; by training your strength, speed, and coordination, you inherently stretch your muscles and increase your flexibility (in a healthier manner).
Although stretching is not good for warming up, preventing muscle soreness, or enhancing your athletic performance, it can be used for many other things. Stay tuned next week to find out, when I cover the benefits of stretching.