Should You Be Stretching? What The Evidence Says About Stretching For Preventing Injuries and Increasing Performance
Unpopular Opinion Alert: The evidence is lacking on stretching’s effectiveness for many measures
“There was high‐quality evidence that stretching did not have clinically important effects on joint mobility in people with or without neurological conditions if performed for less than seven months.”12 Cochrane Review
“Limited evidence showed stretching had no effect in reducing injuries.” Hart L. Effect of stretching on sport injury risk: a review. Clin J Sport Med. 2005 Mar;15(2):113–113. PubMed #15782063.
“no significant differences in incidence of injury between the prevention group and the placebo group,” and the authors concluded that the exercises “did not influence the risk of developing overuse knee injuries or medial tibial stress syndrome in subjects undergoing an increase in physical activity.”Brushøj C, Larsen K, Albrecht-Beste E, et al. Prevention of overuse injuries by a concurrent exercise program in subjects exposed to an increase in training load: a randomized controlled trial of 1020 army recruits. Am J Sports Med. 2008 Apr;36(4):663–670. PubMed #18337359. ❐
“Despite a few outlying studies, consistently favourable estimates were obtained for all injury prevention measures except for stretching. Strength training reduced sports injuries to less than 1/3 and overuse injuries could be almost halved” Lauersen JB, Bertelsen DM, Andersen LB. The effectiveness of exercise interventions to prevent sports injuries: a systematic review and meta-analysis of randomised controlled trials. Br J Sports Med. 2014 Jun;48(11):871–7. PubMed #24100287. ❐ PainSci #53226. ❐
As we’ve discussed in previous articles, we must try our hardest to make sure our time is being used effectively!
Despite common dogma, stretching has really not held up to the hype. It doesn’t prevent injuries, and activiely decreases performance when static stretching is used before the activity. Muscles don’t get “short” or “tight”, it is just a subjective experience you are feeling within your body. Even if muscles “shortness or tightness” did occur, static stretching does not lengthen these muscles. The only way you can lengthen muscles is through destruction of sarcomeres, as shown by something like the nordic hamstring exercise.
Once more, we are chasing biological boogeymen to correct complex biological, psychological, and sociological issues.
It would be my reccomendation to forgo static stretching of any kind and replace it with resistance training, adequate sleep and nutrition, and aerobic training. These facets have excellent evidence behind them, unlike the static stretching we’ve all come to know and love.
