Stretching…The Truth

It’s an issue that’s been debated for years: Is stretching beneficial for athletic performance and prevention of workout soreness?

The British Journal of Sports Medicine reports that researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia reviewed dozens of recent studies of stretching, trying to determine whether stretching helped prevent soreness after a workout.

The authors found 12 studies completed in the past 25 years that focused on that subject. Although most of the studies were small and short-term, surprisingly, each produced essentially the same result: Stretching does not produce important reductions in muscle soreness in the days following exercise compared to those who did not stretch.

Among the notable findings is that roughly 54 percent of the 2,377 active adult participants in one study said that they regularly performed static stretching, and a majority of those studied said one of the main reasons they stretched was to avoid muscle soreness.

Other studies have shown that static stretching is not effective at reducing injury risk, as those who stretched experienced about the same number of sports-related injuries as those who didn’t.

But researchers caution to take the findings carefully. Reliable information about stretching remains elusive because stretching is difficult to study because no studies of stretching meet the scientific gold standard of being both randomized and blinded.

So, should you or should you not, stretch before, during or after a workout?

Dr. Michael Fredericson, a professor of sports medicine at Stanford University believes dynamic stretching, during which you move while lengthening muscles and connective tissues, could be more effective than static stretching at reducing injuries and soreness.

Dr. Fredericson advises to “try substituting jumping jacks for toe touches before a run. And if you feel frequent tightness in certain muscles or tissues (like in the iliotibial band that runs along the outside of your knee, a common occurrence in distance runners) then stretch those particular muscles after exercise to lessen your chances of serious injury.”