
A stretching habit isn’t doing much of what people hope - AuthorizedCust
https://www.painscience.com/articles/stretching.php
======
smichel17
A relative of mine is an Alexander Technique teacher. My understanding of
stretching, from them, is that:

\- The main point of stretching is to improve your range of motion, for injury
prevention. For example, if your hamstrings are too tight to bend at the knees
and hips, you can injure your back trying to pick things up off the ground.
(Corrolary: If you're already flexible enough to bend your joints in the
proper ways, you don't need to stretch much; just enough to maintain that
flexibility). \- Stretching before exercise is mostly pointless; a warm-up is
far more important. After exercise is the best time to stretch, while your
muscles are still warm & loose. \- The proper way to stretch is to move right
up to the edge of your range of motion, then relax. It should be slightly
uncomfortable, but NOT painful -- that's because pain prevents you from
relaxing; "feeling the burn" is a good way to injure yourself. \- Short
stretches are not very effective (though of course they can still feel good).
Stretches should be held for a few minutes. When you release the stretch, the
muscle should feel pleasantly warm.

That is to say, many people stretch terribly wrong. Thus, unless the studies
cited also taught people to stretch correctly, I would expect them to show no
benefit from stretching.

I looked at the abstracts of a couple of the studies cited but could not
ascertain how participants were told to stretch. I'd appreciate if anyone
wants to spend the time to dig into the research a bit more and figure out
whether any of it contradicts my relative or whether it merely supports the
claim that _incorrect_ stretching is basically useless.

------
notacoward
I wish they'd make more of a distinction between pre- and post-exercise
stretching. As I understand it, pre-exercise stretching really is pretty
useless if not outright harmful. That's what the article _seems_ to focus on,
but it's maddeningly vague. OTOH, I haven't heard such a severe indictment of
post-exercise stretching. It's what I do. I run more than 95% _of other
runners_ who enter 1000 km/year challenges that enable me to make such
comparisons, and that's already a pretty self-selected group. I've had one
serious encounter with plantar fasciitis, lesser incidents of ankle or knee
tenderness, and occasionally some mild shin splints. I feel like some simple
stretches - nothing aggressive or elaborate - after each run have helped with
some of these. Perhaps stretching really is over-hyped, but this article seems
just as questionable on the other side.

~~~
amb23
I'm interested in this difference too, because anecdotally post-workout
stretching does reduce soreness for me. One of the two studies referenced in
the part about how stretching doesn't prevent DOMS actually did find that
stretching decreased soreness, and post-workout stretching decreased it more
than pre-workout stretching:
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735398](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21735398).
But, as the paper authors termed it, the effects were "clinically
insignificant" (not the same as "statistically insignificant"). The results
still strike me as odd from my personal experience, because it's so
predictable that I'll be sore if I lift weights without a 5-10 min cool down
afterwards. I'd want to see added research beyond these couple of studies
before jumping to a conclusion.

------
bongo662
When I got into lifting I was told not to do static stretches like quad pulls
or arm across chest ect but to work on dynamic stretches like leg swings and
foam rolling just to get blood flowing to those areas and then to do static
stretches after the lifting session if you really want to. The idea I was told
was that stretching cold is just like pulling on a cold rubber band; its
easier to snap.

------
SimeVidas
Flexibility is a good-enough reason for me.

------
jjoonathan
In group exercise, stretching performs an extremely useful function: giving
people who arrive early something to do while waiting for others. For this
reason alone, it will survive and thrive in this context no matter how much
evidence stacks up suggesting it doesn't have the purported benefits.

------
komali2
You can't kick high if you can't stretch high, so martial prowess is the first
counter-example I can think of.

------
nickthemagicman
I had shin splints really bad everytime I ran. The minute I started stretching
first I never got shin splints again. So it's anecdotal but in my limited
scientific experiment stretching has 100% success rate.

------
sakopov
If anybody on here runs marathons you might know a guy named David Goggins.
He's an ultra marathon runner and a former Navy Seal. The guy had major health
problems I believe after leaving Navy and he attributes his recovery to 8
hours of stretching every single day (he eventually cut it down to 2 hours).
The man is an amazing endurance athlete in general. Highly recommend checking
out his story.

Edit: here is the link where he talks about it [1]

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSpaBN63ovk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSpaBN63ovk)

~~~
mdekkers
_He 's an ultra marathon runner and a former Navy Seal._

It is a common fallacy to assume that what may be good for "superhuman" (ultra
marathon, navy seal) is also good for regular human. In this case, correlation
doesn't imply causation.

------
ntSean
I've had neck pain for the past few years. After visiting a number of doctors
and physiotherapists and having an MRI to help diagnose - I was recommended
strong anti-inflammatory medicine and massages. While it helped, this was a
persistent problem. Ultimately it wasn't until I started building a routine of
stretching and building strength that I've started to overcome it. I have a
feeling it might be a similar circumstance to our discovery of Myopia
prevention; we had evidence to suggest sunlight helped, but not a true
understanding of the mechanics until recently. Stretching might not be the
solution by itself, but maintaining and improving mobility is a stepping stone
to healthy muscles.

~~~
bzmoximbloxim
Very similar situation in my case. Had pain for years and quite severe at
times. Dr's prescribed muscle relaxers that just made me sleep, and pain/knot
would be back right away. It was on my trapezius, and always a knot there I'd
have my wife use her elbow. Wasn't until I stumbled across this video from
Kelly Starrett til I found the cure. Yes, cure. I keep doing the stretches
every day to keep it at bay.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRozBCFU_pA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRozBCFU_pA)

~~~
ntSean
Wow! Thank you so much for the link. Its amazing how similar our situation
sound, my partner too would have to use her elbow for these knots. I'll be
adding these stretches to my routine!

------
keyle
As far as I understand from years of body building, stretching helps mostly
with the recovery, after the fact, often the next day, with some very light
weights - redoing the same execercise as yesterday with stretches will improve
recovery time.

------
RandomInteger4
Can't be further from the truth. Not even going to read the article.

I've experienced enough disfunction from a lack of stretching to know how
useful stretching is if you lift weights. Hell, just sitting down too often
necessitates stretching, lest your psoas shrink from the position. It would be
like limiting the range of motion of your elbow for long periods of time;
eventually that bicep is going to shrink longitudinally (lengthwise).

Limitations on range of motion like this lead to situations where it's easier
to hyper-extend that muscle, i.e. overstretch it in a short (split second)
period of time.

To be specific, I used to deadlift frequently, but I didn't stretch later on,
and eventually just the simple act of putting on socks caused me to hyper-
extend my rhomboids or something back there. Put me out of commission for a
bit such that even biking became impossible without excruciating pain
afterwards.

------
atomical
I've been thinking trigger point therapy is pseudoscience for a while. I doubt
it is possible to stretch the IT band. If it was possible couldn't you over
stretch it?

~~~
HiroshiSan
I'm not sure about the it band, but foam rolling my calves massively decreases
the pain and tightness I get from walking, and if I make foam rolling a habit,
I no longer get pain.

Also, it's possible the pain is gone from just walking a lot but it don't
think this is the case because I get pain if I walk a lot and don't foam roll.

~~~
justinator
Good chance that foam rolling does 0 for your calf muscles/tendons, but breaks
up the bonds of sticking fascia, which tfa doesn't touch upon at all.

Foam rolling doesn't need to be overdone, either.

------
spectrum1234
This makes sense intuitively (and also isn't new news).

Animals don't stretch. They do fast however (against their will of course).
Which one is probably better, the natural or forced one?

One question that remains is regarding dynamic stretching. What does everyone
think?

~~~
cm2012
Animals stretch all the time. Evidence: My cats and dog do it all the time.

~~~
jjoonathan
Not like a yoga class or exercise group.

~~~
loco5niner
Have you not heard of "downward-dog"? My moms dog does this move every time he
gets up...

