Stretching - What's the Point?

It’stime to bust a myth.  This time, I’ve gotmy crosshairs on one of the most fabled exercise components of all time –static stretching.  For a quick clarifier,static stretching is when you’re either sitting or standing, and in a fixedposition for longer than a few seconds to “stretch” your muscle.

Now,why do we stretch?  Is it because itfeels good?  I’d have to say that what“feels good” depends largely on the body part. In fact, I seriously contemplate headbutting a concrete wall (like TheSituation on JerseyShore) so that I don’thave to stretch my hamstrings.

So,then, we must static stretch to prevent injuries, right?  RIGHT!? Well, it turns out that’s not true. A quick search on PubMed will yield a long list of literature thatillustrates that there really is nocorrelation between static stretching and injury rates. (If you want to getyour nerd on, you can check here, here and here)  If you think about when muscles strainsoccur, they almost always occur in a normal range of motion.  If that’s the case, how would an increasedrange of motion prevent thoseinjuries?

Let’sexamine what static stretching ACTUALLY does. What you’re trying to do is lengthen a muscle that you think is short ortight.  But, how do you know the muscleis actually the target of your stretch? You could instead be putting force on the passive structures such astendons or joint capsules (yikes!). While there’s difference in opinion on how long the effect of stretchingtends to last, it’s generally accepted that within an hour your muscle will beback to the same length.

Now,what if you have “tight” hamstrings? Well, most often, the muscle is NOT short.  Instead, the muscle has neuromusculartightness, which simply means that your brain is telling that muscle to beturned on in order to protect yourself.

Let’ssay that you have crazy anterior pelvic tilt, which is a fancy way of sayingthat you tend to have a permanent arch in your lower back that makes your butt stickout more than other people.  For thosewith this type of pelvic tilt, your hamstrings are going to be tight in orderfor you not to crumple up into a ball of fail, and keep your pelvis in a*somewhat* correct position.

Lastly,there’s a ton of evidence that performing static stretching actually decreases your poweroutput, compared to those who don't.  I’mnot sure about you, but I like to throw some weight around in the gym, andoften want as much strength and power as possible.

Soif you shouldn’t stretch, how does one warm up before going on a run, liftingweights, or playing a sport?  Well, itshould be by doing an active and dynamic warm up, where you go through yourranges of motion while moving your entire body. Next, some specific warm ups to your activity are in order, as that willbe much more specific and efficient than just stretching your hamstrings.

Tobe clear (and a bit of a hypocrite), I do believe that there probably is somerole for static stretching, but I see it more as a corrective exercise than forinjury prevention.  Also, you need to fixthe kink in the chain that was the reason you were “tight” in the firstplace.  For example, I would follow upsome hamstring stretches with some core work (since I believe that’s the realreason why my hamstrings are tight), followed by some good deadlifts which should“lock in” that newfound range of motion.

Thinkabout it like this: if you like to stretch, you can definitely do it.  But, realize that you’re probably wastingyour time.  If you can touch your toes,spend all of that time you used to stretch to simply get stronger.