Modern Athlete Magazine Issue 58, May 2014 | Page 27
Body Science
Myth-busting
the Warm-up
Stretch
N
obody is quite sure where or when it started,
but somewhere along the way athletes were told that
stretching before a run, workout or sports match would
loosen up their muscles, thus making them better able
to handle the exertion of the upcoming activity. Thus
static stretching became part not only of many athletes’
warm-ups, but they also believed it would help protect
against injury, as the muscles would have an increased
range of motion and could better deal with repeated
stress or sudden over-stretching.
However, in recent years, study after study has refuted
the long-held belief that static stretching warms a
muscle up. In fact, the research has shown that it can
reduce muscle power, or slow you down, because your
muscles are over-stretched and less elastic, and can
actually increase the chances of pulling up with an
injury. For runners who are already quite flexible, static
stretching can even make them more injury-prone by
pushing the joint too far, into a position which isn’t
optimal for running.
LATEST RESEARCH
In a massive study done in 2013 by researchers at the
University of Zagreb in Croatia, which was recently
published in The Scandinavian Journal of Medicine
and Science in Sports, the research team analysed 104
studies where athletes only stretched statically to warm
up before they jumped, sprinted, lifted or otherwise
had their muscular strength and power tested, with no
running or other warm-up activity. They calculated that
static stretching actually reduces muscular strength by
5.5%, especially when stretches were held for 90 seconds
or more, and that stretched muscles are, in general,
substantially less strong. In other words, athletes who
stretch to warm up are likely to perform worse than if they
hadn’t warmed up at all!
Another study, published in The Journal of Strength
and Conditioning Research, concluded that if you
stretch before you lift weights, you may find yourself
feeling weaker and more wobbly than you expect during
your workout. For this study, young, fit men performed
standard squats with barbells after either first stretching or
not. The volunteers could only manage 8.3% less weight
after static stretching, but even more interesting, they also
reported that they felt less stable and more unbalanced
after the static stretching warm-up.
NOT THE DONE THING!
Together, these studies augment a growing scientific
consensus that pre-exercise stretching is generally
unnecessary and likely counterproductive, with the various
study authors writing that they suspect the problem is that
stretching does exactly what we expect it to do: It loosens
muscles and their accompanying tendons – which makes
them less able to store energy and spring into action, like
a worn-out elastic band. According to Dr Goran Markovic,
who headed up the Croatian study, “After this study, we
can now say for sure that static stretching alone is not
Image: iStock
No matter where you go, you will see runners leaning against a wall,
lamppost, park bench or car, statically stretching before a run, going
through the stretching motions as part of their usual warm-up routine…
but scientific research is proving over and over that stretching to warm
up actually hampers your running performance. – BY SEAN FALCONER
recommended as an appropriate form of warm-up. A
warm-up should improve performance, not worsen it, so
a better choice is to warm-up dynamically, by moving the
muscles that will be called upon in your workout.”
What that means is a runner warming up for a training
run or race should rather jog slowly to warm up those
leg muscles, stretching them dynamically by putting
them through the range of motion they’ll need for the
run, and this can then be complimented by gentle
skipping or hopping... instead of trying to bend your foot
all the way up to touch your butt, which stretches your
cold quad muscle way beyond the range of motion it will
be asked to go through while running!
BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE…
Stretching does still have its benefits, though, and it’s
just a matter of understanding how to incorporate the
right amount and type of stretchin