I’ll take decades of real world application over this study. If anything, stretching helps to counter muscular imbalances, which are often precursors to injury.
And he really thinks static stretching doesn’t increase flexibility? Has he ever stretched in his life?
from all the articles i read stretching decreases strength and power,mostly because you dont get that end of range of motion effect and be able to explode back up.
dynamic warm up seems to be your best bet…running, then lunges bodyweight squats stuff of that nature.
and ive never once stretched in my 17 years of soccer and 3+ of lifting and have never had any injury associated with it ie. hamstring/pec/quads strains so ill stick with a nice warm up
I’ve seen these kind of articles before. I don’t really believe them. Never have. My experience dictates otherwise. Tight, stiff muscles = increased likelihood of injury. Not to mention feeling like ass when doing any hard anaerobic/aerobic effort. I can also say that it does decrease soreness for me. And I’d never think of running a race without stretching and warming up.
That said, I don’t stretch before training with weights. I just do some lighter warm-up sets when lifting heavy.
I think pre training stretches are bull. Why would anyone want to stretch a muscle before it has to squeeze the weight up or down or where ever.
Post training stretching I think has it’s benefits. More room the muscle to grow if the muscle fascia is looser. More ROM, more resistance and less risk for a muscle tare.
Leaving ones ego at the door when stepping inside the gym is the best injury prevention I know.
[quote]conorh wrote:
Gael wrote:
Stretching has increased my flexibility.
That’s a tautology. [/quote]
No it isn’t. In fact, the author was trying to claim that stretching doesn’t increase flexibility.
[quote]anonym wrote:
Unless a specific lack of flexibility is preventing me from performing a certain exercise or a necessary daily task, I can’t think of a reason why I would want to stretch. I notice nothing from it, and don’t see the point of being flexible for the sole purpose of being flexible. I don’t want to touch my toes straight-legged that badly.
I read an article at exrx.net a while back that tackled this, as well.
A better article would be one that tries to explain to me why some people at my gym windmill 10 lb plates in the name of warming up.[/quote]
I find it hard to believe you could do a full squat but not touch your toes.
i think what you ment to say is that stretching does prevent injurys
[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
I love how the ‘flat earthers’ are saying “I will continue to stretch, even though the science say it reduces power and strength in the short term, just because I have ALWAYS stretched.”
Classic ‘bury-your-head-in-the-sand’ approach.
Bushy[/quote]
At one point the literature showed that deep squats were bad for your knees. People can make their own observations you know.
[quote]Gael wrote:
conorh wrote:
Gael wrote:
Stretching has increased my flexibility.
That’s a tautology.
No it isn’t. In fact, the author was trying to claim that stretching doesn’t increase flexibility.[/quote]
If the author was trying to claim that, I missed it. I think its absurd to debate that stretching increases flexibility, as much as it would be to say that strength training doesn’t make you strong or speed training doesn’t mke you fast, hence my post.
I think it’s a different matter entirely to debate whether that flexibility does anything for you.
[quote]shizen wrote:
I find it hard to believe you could do a full squat but not touch your toes. [/quote]
I can’t speak for anyone else, but I have little trouble doing a full squat (back or front), but I can’t touch my toes when stretching my hamstrings. Not unless I cheat a little and bend my legs slightly. That being said, I have noticed that if I slack off on my stretching and foam rolling, I do find it harder over time to squat with full ROM.
[quote]shizen wrote:
anonym wrote:
Unless a specific lack of flexibility is preventing me from performing a certain exercise or a necessary daily task, I can’t think of a reason why I would want to stretch. I notice nothing from it, and don’t see the point of being flexible for the sole purpose of being flexible. I don’t want to touch my toes straight-legged that badly.
I read an article at exrx.net a while back that tackled this, as well.
A better article would be one that tries to explain to me why some people at my gym windmill 10 lb plates in the name of warming up.
I find it hard to believe you could do a full squat but not touch your toes. [/quote]
What is so hard to believe about that?
I don’t know what to tell you other than I can’t do it.
warm up before lifting,
stretch AFTER lifting. only stretch where it is relevant to gain the mobility required to do the lift. excessive mobility isn’t always a good thing. not much good for a powerlifter to be able to do full splits.
[quote]bushidobadboy wrote:
will to power wrote:
bushidobadboy wrote:
I love how the ‘flat earthers’ are saying “I will continue to stretch, even though the science say it reduces power and strength in the short term, just because I have ALWAYS stretched.”
Classic ‘bury-your-head-in-the-sand’ approach.
Bushy
At one point the literature showed that deep squats were bad for your knees. People can make their own observations you know.
I’m not commenting on the literature. I’m commenting on the attitude that “Because I have always done it a certain way, I shall keep on doing it so, despite scientific evidence to the contrary”.
It’s a bit like the 40yr old heavy smoker who has ‘observed’ no negative effects in himself from smoking, therefore sees no reason to stop.
Bushy[/quote]
Well I was commenting on the literature, because its fallibility is relevant. When people’s observations are totally contrary to how scientists are interpreting their data, such as squats work well and don’t hurt people’s knees and certain kinds of stretching are improving my flexibility and have removed nagging pains, then of course they’re going to ignore the science and just keep doing what’s working.
there’s a study from a canadian univeristy that looked at 5 studies on stretching to prevent lower leg injury
and found no proof that stretching prevents lower leg injury
so take that for what its worth
I doesn’t address upper body, or stretching for other purposes
it was basically runners and leg injury
if you google stretching does not prevent injury that study is top 3 or so
[quote]Rusty Barbell wrote:
If not for pre-workout stretching, at the very minimum, by now I would have blown my knees out, strained my back a 1000 times, and torn my pecs and shoulders into many little pieces of worthless muscle. [/quote]
How do you know?
I have seen reference to studes that give indication that stretching pre workout will lead to a decrease in strengh and that one should not stretch prior to a workout which requires maximum strengh or a demanding technical workout such as martial arts or high intensity running.
However, when one looks at what is actually practiced in the fitness/sport industry, it is more common than not to find people stretching preworkout. I know for martial arts, every school i have been involved with always did stretching pre workout.
Personnally, i think it is more important to get the muscles warmed up than to stretch prior to a workout. If one wants to stretch, i think its best done post workout and while the muscles are still warmed up.
I believe I read stretching relaxes the muscle and you don’t want that before you lift
I could be wrong, I always am, hee hee