Hi friends,

It’s ingrained into us from a young age that we need to stretch before we exercise or play a sport so that we don’t get injured. But is this true?

The current research does not back this statement and shows that there is moderate to strong evidence that routine application of static stretching does not reduce overall injury rates.

Static stretching is when you hold a stretch for a prolonged period to increase muscle flexibility and range of motion. If one lacks adequate flexibility in areas of the body that are required to be flexible for their sport or activity, static stretching may help prevent future injury.

But suppose you already have enough flexibility to play your sport. In that case, increased flexibility and range of motion may harm your performance and increase your risk of injury.

Take a cyclist for example. I see many of them in my clinic that have extremely tight hip flexors, but this doesn’t mean that I will give them any stretches for the hip flexors. Their hip flexion averages around 30-70 degrees while cycling, so it is beneficial for the hip flexors to be tight to perform optimally.

So, as usual, the answer to “Should you routinely stretch” is it depends. However, I would not regard static stretching as a pivotal thing to do to prevent injury.

Instead, I would focus on other factors that are more substantiated in the research to prevent injury including:

• Getting 7-9 hours of sleep each night

• Eating 0.7-1.0 grams of protein per pound of body weight per day

• Strength training

• Stability training (the ability to resist unwanted movement)

• Stress management (meditation, breath work, progressive relaxation)

• Load management (progressively working up to ideal load/activity while providing enough time for your body to recover)

There are many different ways to prevent injury, but spending time on static stretching, especially if you don’t have much time to allocate to physical activity, should not be at the forefront.

Until next week,

Kevin