Does stretching help or hurt runners?
Research casts doubt on what was once considered part of most warm-up routines
When it was first reported that stretching before exercise didn’t reduce the risk of injury, the exercise community reeled back in surprise and disbelief. It was the early 2000s and stretching was considered a vital part of most warm-up routines.
More than a decade and several corroborating studies later, most runners have moved their stretching routine to after or between workouts, still believing that more pliable muscles will help ward off chronic running injuries and make them better runners.
Yet according to a research team from Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, and Edge Hill University in the U.K., the benefits of stretching for the running community have been habitually overstated.
“It appears stretching may hold significance for certain exercise disciplines; however, it can be concluded that it holds no advantage for endurance runners and is not the solution to improving performance or reducing injury prevalence,” said the authors of a paper published in Research in Sports Medicine.
Believing that the rationale for most stretching regimens is “based not on science, but on assumption,” the authors reviewed the available evidence on the effect stretching has on long-distance runners (anyone who runs distances of 5K or greater). Their findings suggest that not only is stretching not the panacea for injury, as was once thought, it also has little effect on performance or in helping recover from a long and/or tough run. In fact, the whole idea that flexibility is a desirable trait among runners has been called into question.
Consider the fact that the best runners are not the most flexible runners. In fact, evidence suggests a certain level of muscular stiffness improves running economy, considered the holy grail of running performance.
But that’s not all the stretching myths the authors have busted. They also concluded that stretching does little to reduce the muscle soreness (delayed onset muscle soreness) that sets in after a particularly long or tough workout.
“There was no evidence to suggest stretching could assist in the reduction of (delayed onset muscle soreness) across the literature for athletes of any discipline,” the authors said.
To be clear, the type of stretching that’s the focus of the majority of studies the authors reviewed is static stretching, defined as the lengthening of a muscle until tension is felt and then holding that position for period of time, usually 30 seconds. Dynamic stretching, a more active form of stretching that takes the joint through its full range of motion but without holding it in a static position, hasn’t been extensively studied, a point worth keeping in mind for runners who include active stretching as part of their pre- or post-run routine.
With so little proof that stretching of any type benefits performance or reduces injury risk, it’s time for runners to reconsider how much time they devote to a practice that could hamper their performance.
That doesn’t mean you need to say goodbye to stretching for good. Keep in mind that runners need a functional range of motion in the joints of their lower extremities. And since joint range of motion slowly diminishes over time, some form of stretching may very well
be beneficial, especially among older runners. Also worthy of note is that injured runners may benefit from a stretching protocol designed as a form of rehabilitation.
But for the average healthy runner, it’s worth considering how much time you need to devote to stretching. Certainly, if you haven’t already done it, it’s time to give up stretching before your run. As for how much stretching to do between runs, suffice to say that you don’t need the flexibility of a gymnast to run around your neighbourhood. In fact, that degree of flexibility may actually impede your performance while on the run.