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Most athletes do some type of stretch routine before a workout or before they perform, but could stretching actually be detrimental? The current research on stretching shows the effects of stretching to be insignificant at best and perhaps, actually harmful.
Why do athletes stretch? The reasons vary, but typical answers are: “to prevent injury”, or “to warm up”, or “to reduce soreness”, but mostly “because some coach / trainer / friend told me I should”.
Lets look at what the research says:
Recent studies published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine have shown the decrease in injury due to stretching to be statistically insignificant stating that it would take the average person 23 years of stretching to prevent one injury.
And
The effects of stretching on muscle soreness have been proven to be “too small to make stretching to prevent later muscle soreness worthwhile”.
Regarding stretching as a warmup, a 2003 study from the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise demonstrated that static stretching prior to bench pressing reduced the pressing power. A similar study from Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sports showed a similar decline in muscle strength after stretching.
These results do not build a good case for stretching as a warmup. So then, how should we warm up? It has been shown that a dynamic joint mobility (DJM) warm-up to be more a more effective means to prepare an athlete for strenuous activity. Joint mobility prepares the central nervous system for the demands of strenuous activity by activating mechanoreceptors. Mechanoreceptors are movement sensing nerve endings; they are all over the body, but primarily focused in the places that move the most - around the joints.
DJM differs from stretching in that it is dynamic and active, and is typically performed in positions and at speeds encountered in the sport. Stretching on the other hand is often static and slow, and therefore does not prepare the circuitry of the nervous system. DJM does not take the athlete into tension as stretching does but moves just to the edge of tension as the joint is taken through its entire range of motion.
A full body joint mobility warmup such as Z-Health’s Neural Warmup 1 can be performed in under 15 minutes and provides a much better pre-activity warm up and injury prevention than static stretching.
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