Tuesday, October 18, 2011

"Stretching Doesn’t Prevent Or Reduce Muscle Soreness"

It doesn't seem to do much at all:

"As the Cochrane Review notes, people generally stretch for one of three reasons:
  1. reduce the risk of injury;
  2. enhance athletic performance;
  3. reduce soreness after exercise..."

It doesn't seem to do any of the above, as the link makes clear.

So why stretch?  Capability.  If you want to be able too do x, and it requires you to be limber, you've got one way of getting limber.  Do x until you're limber, or stretch in anticipation of the need.

The one stretch I do regularly is the potty squat, which I've found key to resolving my leg issues.  But I am going to be doing a bit more stretching because I've gotten to the point where my lack of capability is getting annoying.  The downside of a desk job.

2 comments:

  1. Again, the headline buries the important details.

    Stretching after exercise does prevent injury. My case specifically. Taking up running caused the following. Tight hamstrings > Tight calf > achilles tendonitis. Stretching calf muscles after running would have prevented the issue from developing in the first place.

    This article touches on that after the scathing details of the three topics. Stretching after exercise is not covered by these studies, so don't draw conclusions about it based on the above article.

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  2. I agree with Tuck. My right leg doesn't bend as well (into a squat) as my left. I've been doing a bunch of work on it to make it bend that well... My thought is both sides of me should work equally as well.

    Tim

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