Stretching adds precious minutes to your workout, but is it all it鈥檚 cut out to be? Accepted wisdom has it that a good stretch helps avoid injury and leaves you less sore after a tough workout. But a 2011 review of 12 studies found that regardless of whether you do it before or after exercise, stretching doesn鈥檛 (see 鈥�No sweat: Should my muscles be hurting days after a workout?鈥�).
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It also doesn鈥檛 seem to reduce the risk of injuring your back or lower limbs. to muscles, ligaments and tendons. This is especially true of dynamic stretching, where you move your limbs to increase the range of motion, says , who is also the head strength and conditioning coach for New Zealand鈥檚 All Blacks rugby team. 鈥淭he point of stretching should be to get good mobility and normal function,鈥� he says.
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What about performance? In work now under review, Gill and his team looked at how stretching affected 20 athletes sprinting, jumping and changing direction. Although the participants felt the stretching would help, it made no difference.
And aside from that fact it wastes time, there might be other good reasons to skip the stretch. 鈥淚t may, in fact, reduce exercise performance for some types of activities such as endurance running,鈥� says of Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, who has conducted a review of studies looking at the impact of stretching. The static variant where you try and hold or increase a stretch, seems especially bad. 鈥淪tatic stretching has been shown to inhibit maximum strength and power, which are important for explosive activities like jumping and sprinting,鈥� she says. That鈥檚 because these movements . Stretching seems to reduce their ability to store and reuse this form of energy, says Norton, stopping people from sprinting as fast or jumping as high.
So if you feel stiff or tight when you get up in the morning, you should try and address that before you exercise, says Gill. But the idea that you have to spend time stretching before and after each workout? That鈥檚 stretching the truth.
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淒oes stretching help?鈥�
