
Reasons Not to Stretch - glenstein
http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/03/reasons-not-to-stretch/
======
ajays
The title is misleading, to say the least.

I occasionally suffer from lower back pain. From experience, tight hamstrings
seem to be the cause. If I regularly stretch my hamstrings, I am without back
problems. If I stop stretching, then, after a few months, I'll suddenly
develop severe back pain. It's happened 3 times already, so I'm seeing a
pattern.

So I guess my point is: stretching can help in other areas; it just may not
help you improve one specific aspect of your performance. It can keep you
injury-free.

~~~
jacques_chester
The basic point made is that _pre_ -exercise stretching decreases power and
may decrease stability. Sports scientists have been finding this in a number
of studies for some time.

 _Post_ -exercise stretching, or regular therapeutic stretching, is not what
they're talking about.

~~~
LaGrange
Which is what the GP meant: the _title_ is misleading. Which is more important
than you might think, because later those titles end up inside the folk
knowledge.

------
VeejayRampay
Title is misleading. The article's main focus is on pre-workout stretching.

I run several times a week, sometimes up to 20km at once and post-run
stretching is most definitely a must-have.

~~~
greeneggs
I agree. Skipping a post-run stretch is a big mistake. (Just take the
stretching easy after longer runs, like a marathon. Then your muscles are weak
and intensive stretching can damage them.)

I avoid most pre-run stretches, but find that both static and dynamic
stretches of my ankles pre-run are helpful. There are specific studies that
also support this.

~~~
precisioncoder
Depends on your reason for doing so. For instance if it's to avoid muscle
soreness that has been disproved. There are two major reasons for stretching.

One: It increases the amount you can stretch so if you need to be able to
stretch far for some reason it will help with that.

Two: It feels great. I stretch a lot for this reason.

As far as I know there are no other proved benefits to stretching.

------
guylhem
It is nothing new, it was suspected for a while by many studies.

Personally I do not practice stretching. It initially started as an experiment
- as in "if I don't stretch I should get hurt ?", "ok I want to test this and
see precisely how much!", ie to try to evaluate the marginal value of
stretching.

So far I have yet to see a negative consequence of not stretching (ie
increased risk of injury, even if anecdotal experience is not very helpful)

Preparing oneself to movement is something else - you do not just immediately
do something point blank, at least personally I don't - I try to "get a
feeling" of the movement by performing it once or twice without any load.

Neurologically, for a computing equivalent, this acts like caching - your
cerebellum is a cache for your physical movement equations (ie activate this
muscle at this time, then t microseconds later this other muscle, etc)

So just performing the movement like a mime preloads the equations into the
cache - basically, it makes you more efficient!

What worries me however is the amount of people you meet (ex- PT) who insist
on you stretching, and who may not take no as a response - as if the refusal
to stretch was just an indicative of a lack of knowledge, and therefore the
superiority of their position, and that by some "moral imperative" they had to
impose you the truth.

I always find that weird.

Just as with everything in life, wisdom of the crowd may not be indicative of
the best way to achieve a given result.

EDIT: for those talking about post effort stretching, there is less evidence
about this. Some says it prevent too much acidity from accumulating in the
muscle (lactic acid), yet this same parameter in studies on weight lifters has
been show to increase muscle mass and volume. Yes it may cause pain and
prevent you from performing similar activity the next day, but if your goal is
to maximize the health benefits on the time spent, and not just maximize the
distance run or the amount of time spent running, it might be a better idea to
avoid stretching, "do with" the pain, and skip practicing until you have less
pain ie skip up to a week.

Overtraining exists, and just compare marathon runners to sprinters. Who
visually seems the "fittest"? I'd rather look like a sprinter than a marathon
runner, and also the risk of injury seems higher in distance running.

~~~
cynicalkane
Many exercises are simply not safe if your muscles are tight or you lack the
flexibility to do them properly. Swimming, weight lifting, most sports come
immediately to mind.

~~~
bcbrown
I'm a competitive powerlifter. Your statement isn't quite true. The best way
to acquire the flexibility for weightlifting movements is to perform those
movements. If you aren't flexible enough to squat to the correct depth, the
solution is to squat as deep as you can, and let that serve as the stretch.

The accepted wisdom amongst my crowd is that the appropriate warmup prep is
some dynamic movement to raise the body temperature, like rowing or biking,
followed by practicing a given movement at progressively higher weights, until
you are ready for the work sets.

I've never heard a weightlifter recommend static stretching before training.

~~~
vidarh
I do powerlifting, though not competitively, and I can't agree with you that
the best way of acquiring the flexibility is to do the movements. I struggled
for nearly a year to improve my depth on my squats and deadlifts that way.

It took <3 months to fix once I saw a physiotherapist that gave me some
dynamic stretches to do _in between_ my workouts. I increased my squats from a
paltry 2/3 of my body weight and reduced range of motion to 1.5x my body
weight at full range of motion in 6 months from I started doing the stretches,
after having been stuck without any improvement for many months. I've kept
increasing since.

I don't doubt that doing the movements may work for some, especially if you
have reasonable flexibility to start with, but it certainly didn't work for
me, or at least did not give noticeable results over a very long period of
time, whereas it took less than 2 weeks from I started doing my stretches
until I saw substantial improvements.

I absolutely agree with you that pre-exercise stretches is not recommended for
lifting weights, but that does not mean stretches are not useful.

~~~
hv23
Can I ask specifically what kind of dynamic stretching you were doing? I have
chronically tight hips that leave me unable to perform "adequate" squats -
poor range of motion and balance on the squats, and lack of power. I'd love
any tips you have to offer.

~~~
vidarh
Not much, actually. Swinging a leg at a time back and forward, and left and
right, as well putting a foot at a time forward and doing a pike stretch down
to that foot and right back up again, walk a couple of steps and doing the
other foot (like #2 here, but a foot forward at a time:
<http://www.wikihow.com/Get-a-More-Flexible-Back>).

Strict good-mornings are also quite good once you have decent amounts of
flexibility. Strict = make sure your back stays arched, push your butt as far
back as possible, with a slight bend in your knees, and hinge/bend at the
hips. Essentially you should feel it in your thighs and butt and not
elsewhere; if you start losing the arch in your back, you've pushed as far
down as you can go, go back up and repeat. It's more important to keep form
than forcing yourself as deep as possible - you'll get better depth soon
enough.

I've later incorporated some static stretches including several of the one in
the wikihow link above, but the ones above were enough to see dramatic
improvement when done a for a few minutes a couple of times a day.

I also do asian squats regularly (so effectively sitting down in a squat
position, unloaded, for as long as I an do - a few years back I wouldn't be
able to get up without intense pain from that position, if I got into it in
the first place...) and feel that helps me increase the depth I get into (and
it's made it so much easier to play with my young son, to be able to
effortlessly squat down to him instead of ruining my knees...).

------
thebear
One caveat for those who are pushing the big 5-O (and trust me, sooner or
later, you all will be): the title of the article should have been "Reasons
Not to Stretch before Exercise." Stretching for the purpose of counteracting
the loss of elasticity of the tendons that comes with age is a different
matter. It's like "the other flossing": it's well-known that it should be
done, but compliance is spotty.

~~~
bcbrown
I'd phrase it slightly different. Working through the full range of motion is
important for avoiding loss of range of motion. That doesn't have to mean
static stretching.

------
aashaykumar92
Like a couple people have said, this is nothing new--it's an affirmation at
most. But what also is missing is that it is completely reliant on the
individual. Warmups are RELATIVE to YOU, the athlete.

I played 3 varsity sports--soccer, swimming, and track--throughout my 4 years
of high school but made sure that I did a dynamic stretch of MY OWN before
getting into any stretching/exercise with the rest of my team. I stayed
healthy throughout high school. When I got to college, I decided to play
ultimate frisbee and made the A team. I became lazy and started stretching
with the team--the coach had us do a relatively rigorous dynamic stretch. I
wasn't a fan but went along with it (again, I was lazy). About 5 weeks in, I
pulled my hamstring badly and it took me about 6-8 weeks to fully recover. I
don't want to jump to the conclusion that not doing an individual dynamic
stretch was THE reason for my injury, but it definitely was a large
contributing factor. From the time I came back until now, I make sure to do my
own dynamic stretch before getting into any exercise, light or intense--it
works.

WHY?

The whole point of stretching is really to get your muscles moving and to be
comfortable. Only I can decide when I feel I am ready to go...and only you can
decide when you are. So do what you feel is best for you first, then immerse
yourself in activities that your peers or team is doing. And I promise, this
will not be held against you as doing something that the team is not. Hell, I
was the captain of my swimming and soccer teams for my junior and senior
years. If you're helping yourself, you're ultimately helping the team--
especially in this context.

~~~
vidarh
Warmup and stretching are orthogonal to each other. Warmup is important,
stretches pre-exercise are not and may be harmful in terms of injury risk for
_that workout_. Doing dynamic stretches overall is good improving your
flexibility, though. Overall you might very well have done yourself more good
than harm, but you'd likely do yourself even more good by warming up a
different way and doing your dynamic stretches at a different time.

"Getting your muscles moving" does not require a stretch, you can keep your
movements well away from pushing your range of motion.

------
YZF
This is old news. E.g. "Stretching Scientifically" by Tom Kurz published IIRC
some time in the 1980's discusses this in detail. Static stretching ahead of
an activity is counter-productive and increases risk of injury. What you need
to do before an activity is warm-up != stretching and that warm up should be
customized to your activity. Stretching after the activity is a better idea
though you also need to pick the right stretches, combine with strength
training, and it all depends on your flexibility and sport.

Another thought, as someone who sits all day (really need a standing desk!)
and practices Karate and a little Yoga I definitely recommend that people who
sit all day do some sort of stretching and other activities to counteract the
effects of prolonged sitting...

------
m_gloeckl
Being a fairly competitive runner in my spare time (38:40 10k, 1:26 half
marathon), I'd like to weigh in:

There are two different kinds of flexibility involved in running or exercise
in general. 1) Static flexibility: Responsible for your ability to bend over
and reach down to your toes. 2) Dynamic flexibility: Remember those drills
where you try to kick your heel as high as possible? From standing, bringing
up your heel as far as possible is difficult, but even while you're jogging
slowly, it's much easier.

While it is important to maintain a good balance between static and dynamic
flexibility, the latter is more important during exercise. Consider doing a
dynamic warmup before your exercise [1], rather than doing static stretches.
The reasoning behind this is that static stretching reduces the tension within
your muscle fibers and leads to decreased strength and stability during
exercise. After exercise, thorough static stretching is fine. While the effect
on lessening muscle soreness is somewhat doubted, stretching muscle fibers
after exercise prevents your muscle fibers from shortening and aids in
restoring flexibility and tension for your next exercising session.

TL;DR: Rule of the thumb: Pre exercise -> dynamic warm-up; post exercise ->
static stretching

[1] <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=djDqDDQl-Y4>

~~~
fuzionmonkey
I thought this was well understood for a while now.

Has anyone advocated static stretching prior to exercise or sports in recent
times? I'm in college now, but ever since I can remember, dynamic warmups were
done, and static stretching was only post-exercise.

------
jboggan
'"Now, you listen to some of these so-called sports-medicine experts today--
shit! It's just shtick. It's just something else to sell. Warming up," he
scoffed, adjusting a red ascot fitted neatly into his jumpsuit, "warming up is
the biggest bunch of horseshit I've ever heard in my life. Fifteen minutes to
warm up! Does a lion warm up when he's hungry? 'Uh-oh, here comes an antelope.
Better warm up.' No! He just goes out and eats the sucker. You gotta get the
blood circulating, but shit, does the lion cool down? No, he eats the sucker
and goes to sleep. And that," he concluded, folding his arms into a variation
of the pose, "is the truth."'

\- Jack LaLanne on stretching, from Outside Magazine

~~~
Expez
This is a horrible metaphor. The lion would undoubtedly perform at a higher
level if he warmed up properly prior to going out on a hunt. There are,
however, tons of other reasons lions haven't evolved to 'warm up' before going
hunting.

~~~
cafard
Don't the lionesses actually do the hunting?

------
benhamner
Studies like this make you question how much of our folk knowledge and wisdom
is false. I stretch before and after my daily runs under the assumption that
this has been reducing my injury risk. From these results, I should stop
wasting time on pre-run stretches.

Hopefully we'll see more studies built by attempting to support or reject the
folk wisdom we've assumed throughout our lives that haven't been subjected to
rigorous scientific scrutiny through controlled experimentation. This could be
the foundation of very impactful scientific careers.

One challenge would be communicating and disseminating results of such studies
to the public. Many times (especially where diet and lifestyle choices are
concerned) the results would run counter to large and entrenched commercial
interests with enormous marketing budgets and expertise at influencing
consumer choices. Countering this influence as an individual researcher or
cash-strapped government agency isn't trivial, to say the very least.

~~~
rayiner
It's not just folk wisdom. A significant portion of our medical wisdom, what
many doctors pass off as science, has little basis in fact. My wife's
pregnancy was eye opening on this regard.

~~~
foobarqux
Doctors are one of the few groups who don't think they need to justify
themselves. When pressed doctors typically respond with what is essentially
"trust me, I'm a doctor".

What unjustified advice did your wife get?

~~~
rayiner
When she was pregnant, my wife did a lot of research into what the studies
actually said about the impact of caffeine, alcohol, breastfeeding, etc, on
fetal and childhood development. The way doctors and nurses talked about it,
you'd think there were conclusive studies showing major impacts from even low
levels of caffeine and alcohol consumption, and not breastfeeding for up to a
year.

I think the breastfeeding debate is a great example. The studies showing any
non-trivial advantages are tenuous, and often fail to detect any statistically
significant advantage at all. At the same time, doctors completely and
thoroughly fail to analyze these decisions in a rational cost/benefit way.
Breastfeeding is a tremendous burden on career women. If not breastfeeding
enables a woman to get back to work sooner, get less behind on her career
progression, etc, then there is a monetary benefit to not breastfeeding, a
very concrete one one that must be balanced against the tenuous and uncertain
costs of not breastfeeding.

Same thing for drinking during pregnancy:
[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/-a-loaded-
questi...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/-a-loaded-question-on-
dri_b_2150127.html). I recommend reading the Peggy Drexler article, it's
wonderful.

Same thing for caffeine: [http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20100721/moderate-
coffee-drin...](http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20100721/moderate-coffee-
drinking-ok-in-pregnancy). Note that: 1) 200 mg is about two and a half red-
bulls, and 2) exercising, something which doctors recommend to pregnant women
without reservation, has been linked to similar increases in risk of
miscarriage as heavy caffeine consumption.

When it comes to pregnant women, the medical communities recommendations are
wildly unscientific and highly irrational.

------
bjacokes
It's worth looking at "active isolated stretching" for an approach that is
well-regarded in distance running circles and is an alternative to the "static
stretching" that this article is referencing:
[http://www.runnersworld.com/injury-treatment/active-
isolated...](http://www.runnersworld.com/injury-treatment/active-isolated-
stretching-exercises) . It's easy to learn and is a sort of middle ground
between stretching and the active warmup suggested by the article.

Stretching is absolutely important in certain situations -- context matters.
E.g. if you sit all day and have back pain, in general you _should_ be doing
psoas (hip flexor) stretches, and _should not_ be doing back stretches. The
article is mostly right that you should stick with light stretching and
exercises on a daily basis, but for tightness and imbalances that need to be
actively corrected, stretching is the way to go.

------
lukeschlather
> But even more interesting, they also reported that they felt less stable and
> more unbalanced after the stretching than when they didn’t stretch.

I find it somewhat suspect that the study doesn't say they in any way tested
the athletes stability or balance, just that they took them at their word. It
sounds suspiciously like it might even be the Dunning-Kruger effect in action.

Another thing which is suspect is that these studies are done on very short
time-frames. It's quite common that things that are beneficial in the long-
term result in short term problems. I'd be very interested to see some multi-
month or even multi-year studies, especially studies working with more dynamic
metrics (for example, taking populations of sports teams and comparing
win/loss numbers.)

In general I think stretching is important in a variety of ways for physical
activity, and these studies are all focusing in on some very narrow artificial
activities I don't personally do very often. I guess this validates that I
don't stretch before getting on my bicycle, but it doesn't really speak to
stretching before dancing or anything other than strength tests that hit very
specific muscles for a short period.

------
dougk16
Laugh if you will, downvote if you must, but, as with many things, I trust to
my dogs' opinion in the matter: they stretch before physical activity, and so
do I (for other reasons of course too).

I don't dispute the short-term performance gains by not pre-stretching, but is
there a long-term cost? With performance gains in any system, there are
usually trade-offs. If I were in a race to win a million dollars, you can bet
your ass I'm not stretching beforehand based on all this research, but what
about before my light daily jog? I feel all rickety sometimes if I don't.

I'd be interested in a history of stretching, specifically before physical
activity. Evolutionary precedent has a way of shedding light on these sticky
questions. For example, what kind of warm-ups or stretching did cavemen do
before a mammoth hunt?

------
aneth4
This is irresponsibly poorly presented. Pre-exercise stretching doesn't reduce
the chance of injury and slightly reduces performance of muscles. Not terribly
surprising.

Stretching for fitness and flexibility - e.g. yoga - is essential.

Do yoga. Don't do yoga before you play hockey.

------
snowwrestler
Babies stretch; cats and dogs stretch. It's not all harmful, or useless, to
stretch--just do it when you feel like it. This research is really just about
systematic static stretching, done whether you want to or not.

And maybe I didn't read it carefully, but I didn't see anything in there about
preventing injury. I have naturally tight hamstrings; stretching them out
before exercise makes them feel better and less likely to cramp or get pulled.
It probably lowers my performance, but I'm not racing, I'm just trying to have
fun and stay in shape.

------
b1daly
I wonder how much of this effect (muscles weaker after stretching) is because
stretching tires the muscles, as it will certainly require energy to execute a
static for a minute or so. If the effect is similar to other forms of muscle
use, it would be unsurprising. If it weakens muscles in a unique way, that
seems more interesting.

I stretch quite a bit because my muscles get tighter over the time, in
particular from working at the computer.

My dog stretches upon returning to activity from rest. A form of dynamic
stretching, just a few seconds.

~~~
jacques_chester
It wouldn't be due to simple muscular tiredness. Studies on weight training
show that local muscular fatigue can largely dissipate within minutes.

I'd place my money on a CNS phenomenon.

~~~
b1daly
Central nervous system? As a guess would you say such an effect might not be
that bad beyond the immediate lowering of strength? Not a long term effect?

~~~
jacques_chester
One hypothesis of how stretching increases flexibility is that it's a long
term learned effect on the central and peripheral nervous system.

If you try PNF stretching -- where you push back against the stretch -- you'll
be surprised how much further a stretch can go. And that's purely a nervous
system phenomenon, some of it not reaching the CNS at all.

------
bmj
I've found the dynamic warm-ups to be very helpful. I use variations of the
following prior to running:

[http://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?do=view&video_id=84...](http://www.runnerspace.com/video.php?do=view&video_id=8468)
[http://strengthrunning.com/2011/07/the-standard-warm-up-
vide...](http://strengthrunning.com/2011/07/the-standard-warm-up-video-
demonstration/)

I do stretch a few problem areas after I run (hamstrings, for instance).

------
marcuspovey
Dynamic before, good long stretch after (mainly because it feels good).
Stretching to increase flexibility is also a little misleading, everyone at
every age is flexible, but we have inbuilt safeguards where our brain sets a
maximum range of movement and tells the muscles to restrict movement beyond
that. When you stretch to increase flexibility what you're actually doing is
resetting the brain's idea of what's normal rather than stretching muscles or
tendons.

~~~
Charlesmigli
Yes that's indeed the conclusion of the article that one should prefer dynamic
warm up instead of static stretching. For long efforts it says that post
stretching help to recover (The other takeaways of the article can be found
here [https://tldr.io/tldrs/515d3491207be0f11e0007bf/reasons-
not-t...](https://tldr.io/tldrs/515d3491207be0f11e0007bf/reasons-not-to-
stretch))

------
helper
I used to think stretching was stupid. Then I got old. Now I find that
stretching reduces soreness the next day after a run. Certainly others have
had the same experience?

~~~
Expez
Stretching does not reduce soreness, it increses it. Soreness is due to
microtears in the muscle fibers caused by exercise. Stretching can also cause
microtears.

The only way avoid getting sore is to increase your load progressively, or
stay at a load you're accustomed to.

Being flexible might help with soreness in a sense that the soreness is less
noticable: for example if you have very tight hamstrings, and they are sore,
any movement is likely to make that soreness noticable. If, however, you are
quite flexibly you might have to stretch your hamstrings, by bending at the
waist, before you actually notice that you are indeed a bit sore after
yesterday's workout.

------
xd
I'm basing this on my own experiences from running and military training;
stretching before exercise is pointless .. but stretching after very vigorous
exercise does help a lot with reducing cramp and the stiff feeling you get
after waking up.

However I've also found that if I exercise at around the same level most days
I can cut out stretching completely. And when I start to wind the amount of
exercise down, I can feel when my muscles need stretching again.

------
prakster
Did our ancestors stretch before hunting? I doubt it.

~~~
mhb
Did they floss?

~~~
scarmig
Well... has flossing been shown to be useful for human health?

ETA: quick Google, found one meta-study. Results:

"Trials were of poor quality and conclusions must be viewed as unreliable. The
review showed that people who brush and floss regularly have less gum bleeding
compared to toothbrushing alone. There was weak, very unreliable evidence of a
possible small reduction in plaque. There was no information on other
measurements such as tooth decay because the trials were not long enough and
detecting early stage decay between teeth is difficult."

[http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD008829/flossing-to-reduce-
gu...](http://summaries.cochrane.org/CD008829/flossing-to-reduce-gum-disease-
and-tooth-decay)

So, pretty weak evidence, though perhaps mostly from lack of trying. It can't
be considered as important as brushing.

Then again, how do we know brushing is important? Time to find some other
studies...

~~~
prakster
Can't speak for the rest of the world, but at least 99% of India doesn't
floss. Just sayin' :-)

~~~
fusiongyro
Despite the American oral fixation, flossing is not all that popular over
here. The guilt about not flossing is, however, huge.

------
plq
When I was playing water-polo (10+ years ago), we always did some mild
stretching (a couple of moves repeated maybe 10x) after a 20-min jog session
and some body-weight exercises, right before getting into pool. We were said
that trying to stretch "cold" muscles was just destructive.

It's curious to see this brought up as novelty.

------
tokenadult
My wife learned about the book Natural Flexibility

[http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Flexibility-Risk-Free-
Alternat...](http://www.amazon.com/Natural-Flexibility-Risk-Free-Alternative-
Stretching/dp/1578262844)

by Charles Kenny, M.D., and has found it helpful for maintaining injury-free
flexibility for a variety of exercises.

------
trhtrsh
Ctrl-F injury

So they ignored the single reason that stretching is recommended, and found
that stretching has other side-effects.

Thanks, I guess?

~~~
jessriedel
Read more carefully.

> ...without substantially reducing people's chances of hurting themselves.

------
josscrowcroft
Meh. I really doubt this is aimed at this kind of crowd, who tend to sit
(and/or slouch) behind a screen all day.

Running through a stretch routine every morning for the past 6 months has been
an incredible changer in the way I work... I'm more conscious of my posture,
have more vitality, and sleep better.

------
moonboots
I wish pubmed, a primary source for this article, were more usable. I feel
troves of interesting studies go unnoticed because it's so difficult to find
anything. As an example, I tried searching for 'stretching' in pubmed, and the
first result is about mental activity in older adults.

------
stopcyring
What weights were they lifting? 'Moderately trained men' means nothing to me,
also how did they train before?

Some fit guy that is moderately trained and usually jogs every other day, then
is tasked with doing squats for the first time. Yeah.

Maybe someone has access to this data, otherwise point is moot.

------
Iterated
This is pretty old news. I remember being in high school 6 years ago and the
coaches making us do dynamic stretches instead of static stretches. And high
school coaches are notoriously ill-informed.

------
cafard
Marty Liquori, I recall, preferred not to stretch before running, thinking
that cold muscles were easier to tear. Instead, he stretched after running
when his muscles were already warmed up.

------
shawnbaden
From what I've read the one exception to this rule is stretching the hip
flexors will actually improve your vertical jump.

