Stretching: The Truth?!

The New York Times published an article last week called Stretching: The Truth. The "truth", of course, is not what is seems.

Columnist Gretchen Reynolds explains that the commonly held belief that static stretching (aka, normal bend-over-and-touch-your-toes) before a workout warms up muscles is dead wrong. Not only is static stretching not an ideal warm up, Reynolds asserts that pre-workout stretching can actually weaken muscles, ultimately hindering performance.

“There is a neuromuscular inhibitory response to static stretching,” says Malachy McHugh, the director of research at the Nicholas Institute of Sports Medicine and Athletic Trauma at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City. The straining muscle becomes less responsive and stays weakened for up to 30 minutes after stretching, which is not how an athlete wants to begin a workout.

Instead, Reynolds proposes that the athlete cut the pre-workout static stretching completely and include "dynamic" stretching instead.

Stretching muscles while moving, on the other hand, a technique known as dynamic stretching or dynamic warm-ups, increases power, flexibility and range of motion. Muscles in motion don’t experience that insidious inhibitory response. They instead get what McHugh calls “an excitatory message” to perform.

Great, fantastic. Dynamic stretching can be an alternately great way to warm up the muscles and joints before an intense workout or competition. I find it curious though, that the article claims to tell the "truth" yet it includes so little empirical evidence. It mentions one study done by the University of Nevada, quotes two experts in the field, and adds something about ripping the legs off rabbits. Helpful! Thank you for that.

In actuality, there are a lot of studies currently being done on the acute effects of stretching, but the data do not completely support one school of thought over another.

A 2007 review article in Sports Medicine by Rubini, Costa and Gomes suggests that the jury is still out on the effects of stretching at any time, before or after, physical activity.

Although most studies have found acute decreases in strength following stretching, and that such decreases seem to be more prominent the longer the stretching protocol, the number of exercises and sets, and the duration of each set have, in general, exceeded the ranges normally recommended in the literature. Consequently, the duration of the stimuli were excessively long compared with common practice, thus making evident the need for further studies.

So basically, while decreases in muscle strength have been reported in some studies (a la the results report by Reynolds), many times those studies required participants to stretch for excessively long times--presumably much longer than an average person would spend during pre-workout stretching.

Moreover, Rubini, Costa and Gomes add that

when recommending flexibility exercises, one should consider other underlying issues, such as the safety of the participants, possible increases in injury risks and the unnecessary time expenditure.

The Moral of the Story: Obviously it's pretty commonplace for the popular media to give fitness recommendations, but it was a bold move for the NYT to claim the "truth" about stretching based on such insubstantial evidence.

Newspaper and magazines can be great places to find new ideas to jazz up a tired workout routine, but be wary of excessive self-assuredness: it's usually symptomatic of a lack of journalistic integrity!