Should you stretch before exercising? Does stretching help prevent injury? How much of practice, if any, should be devoted to stretching? If a little stretching is good, is a lot of stretching better? As a young athlete, I was consistently instructed to stretch before exercising. I was told that stretching would loosen up my muscles and ligaments and help prevent injuries when I started running around and playing. Later as a coach of youth sport teams, I in turn instructed my young athletes to stretch before playing. Has all of this stretching been helpful to anyone?
There is good reason to question the value of excessive stretching. In 2002, a review article was published in a prominent British medical journal suggesting that stretching before exercise may not be beneficial…and may even be harmful to athletes. None of the studies identified in the review found a direct link between stretching and a lower rate of injury. One reason stretching may not help, and may even hurt, is that increased muscle fiber flexibility around the joint may leave the fibers less able to counter the jarring forces of running, jumping, and twisting. Some experts point to women’s increased risk of anterior cruciate ligament tears in their knees, and ligament sprains in their ankles, and blame these increased risks on their increased flexibility. The analgesic experience of stretching may even be based on a response to muscle tears, according to Jay Blahnik, author of Full-Body Flexibility. In a recent interview with U.S. News & World Report Blahnik stated he believed the only reason stretching feels so good is because “it results in tiny tears in the muscles fibers. The body then releases hormones that mask the pain.”
Does all this mean that you and your children should stop stretching before exercising? No. To be sure, the data remain far from conclusive. It is important to remember that the absence of proving that something does work doesn’t mean that it does not work. But the research does suggest that stretching may not be as important in preventing injury as we once thought. In the end, the best approach to preparing for exercise may be a regimen of warming up and light-to-moderate stretching. The amount of stretching to achieve “light-to-moderate” amounts will vary depending on the individual. Warming up with jogging, swinging a baseball bat, running in place, or any other activity that gets the blood flowing and increases range of motion is perhaps the most important part of the equation of getting ready for exercise.
Grant Cooper, MD
New York-Presbyterian Hospital
The University Hospitals of Columbia and Cornell
For more information, have a look at the following websites:
http://www.everybody.co.nz/research/exercise_stretch.htm
http://www.exrx.net/ExInfo/Stretching.html
http://www.brianmac.demon.co.uk/articles/scni14a5.htm
http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/flexibility/a/aa022102a.htm
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/040621/21ligament.htm
http://k2.kirtland.cc.mi.us/~balbachl/stretch.htm |
