I posted two polls on Instagram earlier this week, one asking “do you think stretching pre workout/during you warmup is good for you/will help improve your performance?”, and “do you consider stretching and warming up the same thing?”. I have to say, I am SURPRISED by the results.
88% of the people who answered my poll thought that stretching BEFORE their workout would improve their performance. If you were part of the group that answered yes, or you would have answered yes to that question then this is an important post for you.
What I found interesting though, is that only 24% of people said “yes”, they consider warming up and stretching the same thing. Many of the people that answered yes to question #1, answered no to question #2… So if they don’t think that stretching and warming up are the same thing, why do they think that stretching pre workout improves their performance/why do they bother doing it??
I’ve been meaning to do this blog post for a while now but have continued to put it off as I knew I would be a laborious one to write due to the amount of research I was going to have to do to get my point across (I’m a busy lady). What lit my fire to actually commit to writing it is the plethora of Instagram fitties showing their pre workout routine lately that consists almost completely of STRETCHING!? I see it all the time; guys and gals showing passive or static stretching as part of their pre-workout warm-up routine. Have they not read any of the stretching research that has been done over the last 10-15 years?
Are you part of the stretch before you workout crew because you think it’s going to make you lift some big ass weights without getting injured? Pls consider paying close attention to the rest of this post…
Let me just start out by saying that I have absolutely NOTHING against stretching and mobility work – stretching is not the enemy, however it does have its time and place (and it’s not pre-exercise). I was to share the research behind why stretching before a workout really isn’t great for you or your performance.
Let’s define the (main) different kinds of stretching:
Static Stretch: a stretch that is held in a challenging but comfortable position for a period of time, usually somewhere between 10 to 30 seconds. Static stretching is the most common form of stretching found in general fitness.
Dynamic Stretch: a type of sports fitness routine in which momentum and active muscular effort are used to stretch and the end position is not held. Walking lunges is an example of dynamic stretch.
Now to myth bust…
Stretching is NOT the same as warming up
Have you never stopped and thought to yourself how silly it seems to warm yourself up, get your heart rate up, and get a lift bit of a stretch on only to then stop, stretch (and let your body cool back down), THEN go and exercise? Does that make sense to you? Cause it surely doesn’t to me.
76% of the people who responded to my Instagram poll agreed with me on this one – stretching is NOT the same thing as warming up – stretching actually undermines your warmup. The purpose of a warmup is to mentally and physically prepare an athlete (or any person participating in physical activity) for optimal performance (Safran et. al. 1988). Stretching does not serve this purpose, therefore does not constitute as a good warm up activity.
What your warm up SHOULD do is mimic the workout or activity you’re about to do. For example, if you’re about to participate in a leg workout, your warmup should consist of movements and activities that prepare your legs for what is to follow: a light jog on the treadmill, and body weight lower body movements like squats, lunges, and hip thrusts are all great options.
Stretching before exercise does not improve your performance
Part of the reason people have been told to stretch before exercise in the past is because fitness experts thought that stretching would improve the athletes performance. In actual fact, recent research has found that stretching before physical activity can actually decrease performance:
“Static stretching can produce a significant acute decrement of approximately 5–30%, in strength and power production of the stretched muscle groups”
(Young & Behm, 2002).
“An acute bout of stretching does not improve force or jump height, and the results for running speed are contradictory.”
(Shrier, I., 2004).
“These data indicate that prolonged stretching of a single muscle decreases voluntary strength for up to 1 h after the stretch as a result of impaired activation and contractile force in the early phase of deficit and by impaired contractile force throughout the entire period of deficit.”
(Fowles, J.R., Sale, D.G., and MacDougall, J.D. 2000).
“[…] it appears that pre-performance stretching exercises might negatively impact skills that demand a high power output in addition to those that rely simply on maximizing peak force. Furthermore, it is possible that this detrimental effect is comparable for skills that take advantage of the stretch-shortening phenomenon and those that do not.”
(Cornwell, A., Nelson, A.G., Heise, G.D., and Sideway, B., 2001).
There is still a lot of speculation amongst researchers around what the exact mechanism behind the stretch-induced decrease in performance. One theory is neural inhibition, which is the process in which excitatory synapses (signals between neurons to transmit a message to another cell) are reduced or suppressed. Another is increased muscle-tendon compliance which leads to a “reduced rate of force transmission from the muscle to the skeletal system” (Young & Behm, 2002).
Stretching before exercise does not reduce your chance of injury
It has been found in numerous studies that those who stretch before exercise were no less likely to suffer from an injury such as a pulled muscle, than those who didn’t stretch before exercise.
A medical writer for ABC news, Maria Cheng, recently wrote:
“Traditional stretches, like when people bend over to touch their toes or stretch their legs on a fence, often cause the muscles to tighten rather than relax—exactly the opposite of what is needed for physical activity.”
In fact, stretching before exercise may actually increase your chances of injury.
I actually feel, as do many experts in the field (not saying I’m an expert, just an opinion I’ve had for a while), that for some types of exercise/sports/weight lifting, a certain amount of tightness in muscles is necessary for ample force and strength production. When participating in stretching directly before exercise, the muscle-tendon unit becomes less compliant, which means that it won’t be “compliant enough to store and release the high amount of energy that benefits performance” (especially in activities and sports that require a lot of bouncing/jumping/force production) (Witvrouw, E., Mahieu, N., and McNair, P., 2004). Basically, if the demands of movement (energy absorption/release) exceed the capacity of the muscle-tendon unit, the risk of injury to the athlete/worker-outer may be elevated.
So, when SHOULD you stretch?!
Stretching should be done after your workout – at this point your muscles are completely warmed up and your joints are lubricated meaning you’ll get way more out of your stretching at this time (and you’ll have gotten way more out of your workout seeing as you didn’t stretch before!).
If you still feel as though you MUST do some kind of stretching before your workout – opt for dynamic stretching as this is a type of stretching that doesn’t hold the muscles in a stretched position for an extended period of time. Dynamic stretching should be a series of movements that mimic the workout you’re about to do – which like I mentioned at the beginning, would be things like body weight squats, walking lunges, and leg swings. These types of movements mean that the muscles involved in the workout you’re about to do will be called upon to fire and work, as opposed to becoming overstretched and non-compliant like in a static stretch.
Until next time
xx
Works Cited
Cornwell, A., Nelson, A.G., Heise, G.D., and Sidaway, B. (2001). Acute effects of passive muscle stretching on vertical jump performance. J. Hum. Mov. Studies. 40:307–324
Fowles, J.R., D.G. Sale, and J.D. MacDougall. Reduced strength after passive stretch of the human plantar flexors. J. Appl. Physiol. 89:1179– 1188. 2000.
Herbert RD, Gabriel M. Effects of stretching before and after exercise on muscle soreness and risk of injury: systematic review. (2002) BMJ, 325(468).
Safran, M.R., Garrett, W.E., Seaber, A.V., Glisson,, R.R., and Ribbeck, B.M. (1988). The role of warmup in muscular injury prevention. Am. J. Sports Med. 16(2):123–128.
Shrier, I. Does stretching improve performance?: A systemic and critical review of the literature. (2004). Clinical Journal of Sport Medicine, 14(5).
Witvrouw E, Mahieu N, Danneels L, McNair P. (2004). Stretching and injury prevention: An obscure relationship. Sports Med, 34(7)
Young, W.B. and Behm, D. (2002). Should static stretching be used during a war-up for strength and power activities?. Strength and conditioning journal.