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INJURY & REHAB
STRETCHING THE TRUTH
Stretching may increase flexibility, but, as movement coach Dave Liow
explains, this doesn’t necessarily reduce the risk of injury.
t’s a given that stretching makes you more flexible. We’re
also told that stretching reduces the risk of injury. This
relationship, however, isn’t clear cut at all.
It’s difficult to isolate the relationship between stretching and
injury when conducting research. There are many factors that relate
to injury risk. Fitness, strength, and previous injury, for example, are
important considerations.
Most of the research investigating stretching and injuries has
followed groups of athletes or military recruits. Using military
recruits in stretching studies has its advantages. Military recruits are
reasonably homogenous, with factors such as age, exercise, and
diet being very similar between groups. When recruits are divided
into a group that stretches and a group that doesn’t stretch, we’re
comparing ‘stretching’ apples with ‘non-stretching’ apples, as it
were. However, using these results from young males in military
studies to prescribe stretches for your 65-year-old female client may
be a stretch.
I
The Goldilocks level of flexibility
One of the larger military studies (Amako et al, 2003) 1 , which
followed 900 recruits over two years, showed that fewer back injuries
occurred with a stretching program. Other military studies, such as
Jones and Hauschild (2015) 2 also show that the most flexible and the
least flexible male recruits had increased injury risk. Recruits with
low flexibility tended to suffer from overuse injuries, while flexible
recruits were more likely to suffer from acute injuries. This suggests
18 | NETWORK AUTUMN 2020
THE QUICK READ
• Much of the research into stretching and
injuries has followed groups of military
recruits, whose age, diet and lifestyle are
similar enough to allow for good comparisons
• One large study showed fewer back injuries
occurring among recruits that followed a
stretching program
• Another study showed an increased injury risk
among the most flexible and least flexible
study subjects
• A large Australian study found no difference in
injury rates between a group that stretched
and a non-stretching group after 12 weeks of
training
• Some studies have reported increased injury
rates with stretching
• Fitness training, proprioceptive training and
strength training have been found to have a
greater effect than flexibility training on
injury-reduction.