Why stretching may be hurting your running economy.

Do you want to be injured, in lots of pain, inflexible, and really unbalanced as an athlete???

STOP STRETCHING

I have practiced yoga for over 49 years and have run over 85,000 miles.

Ashtanga Yoga combined with High-Volume-High-Intensity Training with Lots of Hills and Heavy Squats at 7,000 ft. Altitude... really works.

Molly Huddle (American record holder in the 10,000 meters with a PR of 30:13):

Molly's running resolution for 2017:

"Work more on mobility drills and yoga when I can, to help combat years of mileage-induced stiffness."

http://www.runnersworld.com/elite-runners/more-sleep-less-beer-9-elite-runners-make-new-years-resolutions/slide/1

http://www.runnersworld.com/nyc-half-marathon/huddle-wins-3rd-straight-nyc-half-in-thriller

Molly Huddle's running economy is just fine.

Mobility and flexibility are different things. For running, you want mobility but not much flexibility.

SkyRunner.FlagstaffRunnerTeam,

Please read the article before leaving a reply. This article is about flexibility, not mobility. Cited in this article are studies showing that there may be a correlation between decreased flexibility and improved running economy.

It is great that Molly Huddle wants to work on mobility drills and yoga. What helps one person may not benefit another. If you can find documented studies showing that increased flexibility improves running economy then please share a link because I would love to read them.

For example, you have inflexible muscles and yet your running economy still sucks and you are still really slow.

You also can't do math.

If your increased muscle stiffness leads to injury... then you can't run AT ALL…which becomes ZERO RUNNING ECONOMY with NO RUNNING AT ALL.

Go take a run with Coach Renato Canova.

Renato can't even run 5k without stopping.

Renato is PUDGY and out of shape.

ExuberanceBlog wrote:

SkyRunner.FlagstaffRunnerTeam,

Please read the article before leaving a reply. This article is about flexibility, not mobility. Cited in this article are studies showing that there may be a correlation between decreased flexibility and improved running economy.

It is great that Molly Huddle wants to work on mobility drills and yoga. What helps one person may not benefit another. If you can find documented studies showing that increased flexibility improves running economy then please share a link because I would love to read them.

When you come to a running message board to promote your blog, you can't get angry when people challenge it and criticize it. I also think its funny that you mention that what works for one person may not benefit another while creating a post trying to tell everyone to stop stretching.

SkyRunner.FlagstaffRunnerTeam. wrote:

Do you want to be injured, in lots of pain, inflexible, and really unbalanced as an athlete???

STOP STRETCHING

I have practiced yoga for over 49 years and have run over 85,000 miles.

I will take the science over your anecdotes thanks

Why did you think that 508 seconds was 6:28 pace in the other thread???

The correct answer is 8:28 pace…which you finally figured out…and then you corrected yourself.

Did you forget that there are 60 seconds in a minute???

Inhalation of Xenon noble gas is neuroprotective…and will increase your Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1-alpha levels, which signals renal cells to increase transcription and production of endogenous erythropoietin by renal cells which will then travel and bind to progenitor cells in your bone marrow to increase the production of RBCs containing hemoglobin (which binds 1.39mL of oxygen per gram of hemoglobin)... to transport oxygen to your wee brain... so that you can think more clearly.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26939898

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24861600

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27001214

However, using KRYPTON noble gas is a lot cheaper.

Oh yeah.

Dig it!!!

SkyRunner.FlagstaffRunnerTeam. wrote:

Molly Huddle's running economy is just fine.

For now

SkyRunner.Flagstaff.RunnerTeam wrote:

Why did you think that 508 seconds was 6:28 pace in the other thread???

The correct answer is 8:28 pace…which you finally figured out…and then you corrected yourself.

Did you forget that there are 60 seconds in a minute???

Inhalation of Xenon noble gas is neuroprotective…and will increase your Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1-alpha levels, which signals renal cells to increase transcription and production of endogenous erythropoietin by renal cells which will then travel and bind to progenitor cells in your bone marrow to increase the production of RBCs containing hemoglobin (which binds 1.39mL of oxygen per gram of hemoglobin)... to transport oxygen to your wee brain...

Biggest jerk of the week award?

Sdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:

SkyRunner.Flagstaff.RunnerTeam wrote:

Why did you think that 508 seconds was 6:28 pace in the other thread???

The correct answer is 8:28 pace…which you finally figured out…and then you corrected yourself.

Did you forget that there are 60 seconds in a minute???

Inhalation of Xenon noble gas is neuroprotective…and will increase your Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1-alpha levels, which signals renal cells to increase transcription and production of endogenous erythropoietin by renal cells which will then travel and bind to progenitor cells in your bone marrow to increase the production of RBCs containing hemoglobin (which binds 1.39mL of oxygen per gram of hemoglobin)... to transport oxygen to your wee brain...

Biggest jerk of the week award?

Nah. rjm is not a jerk. Mentally ill, yes, but not a jerk.

ExuberanceBlog wrote:

Check out this post on why runners may be stretching too much and why decreased stretching could help with your running economy.

https://exuberanceblog.com/2017/03/10/want-improved-running-economy-stop-stretching/

I was at an event put on by on by Joachim Cruz and he lamenting that all these athletes were doing yoga and pilates. Their performances didn’t improve and they were always injured. Cruz said that when he was at his best he was completely unflexible. He claims that was common among elites. I believe in range of motion exercises but you can overstretch particularly your hamstrings.

The other thing Cruz hated was orthotics he claimed that Kenyans had the flattest feet out.

give the sick some peace wrote:

Sdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:

Biggest jerk of the week award?

Nah. rjm is not a jerk. Mentally ill, yes, but not a jerk.

...Hmmmm, seems kinda jerky to me. "and then you corrected yourself" - like they should have corrected themselves sooner? before they knew they had done the math wrong?

SkyRunner.FlagstaffRunnerTeam. wrote:

Do you want to be injured, in lots of pain, inflexible, and really unbalanced as an athlete???

STOP STRETCHING

From a scientific review by Claire Baxter et al. (2016)

(Source:

, available for free on scihub).

Injury risk: "The majority of studies suggest that stretching has no impact of the risk of chronic injury in endurance runners (Cosca & Navazio, 2007; Thacker et al., 2003; Witvrouw, Mahieu, Danneels, & McNair, 2004). It has shown that long-term stretching can potentially increase the compliance of the muscle-tendon unit (Toft, Espersen, Kalund, Sinkjaer, & Hornemann, 1989) and may allow greater force production at longer muscle lengths (McHugh & Nesse, 2008) which may be relevant to other sporting disciplines; however, Witvrouw et al. (2004) highlight that for endurance running these potential benefits are not clinically beneficial."

Runner's flexibility: "There is evidence to suggest that typically, elite endurance runners are less flexible than their non-elite counterparts (Saunders, Pyne, Telford, & Hawley, 2004)."

Conclusion: "In conclusion, the literature suggests that stretching poses no significant advantage to endurance runners. Acute stretching can reduce running economy and performance for up to an hour by diminishing the musculotendinous stiffness and elastic energy potential. Chronic stretching additionally appears to have no advantageous effects. "

Writes by someone who hates stretching. Run every day with 2 days off a month for a few years. Then when you have running economy you can worry about it. Too many hobby joggers and uncommitted HSers need to run more, not stretch less.

ExuberanceBlog wrote:

Check out this post on why runners may be stretching too much and why decreased stretching could help with your running economy.

https://exuberanceblog.com/2017/03/10/want-improved-running-economy-stop-stretching/

Sdfsdfsdfsdf wrote:

SkyRunner.Flagstaff.RunnerTeam wrote:

Why did you think that 508 seconds was 6:28 pace in the other thread???

The correct answer is 8:28 pace…which you finally figured out…and then you corrected yourself.

Did you forget that there are 60 seconds in a minute???

Inhalation of Xenon noble gas is neuroprotective…and will increase your Hypoxia-Inducible Factor 1-alpha levels, which signals renal cells to increase transcription and production of endogenous erythropoietin by renal cells which will then travel and bind to progenitor cells in your bone marrow to increase the production of RBCs containing hemoglobin (which binds 1.39mL of oxygen per gram of hemoglobin)... to transport oxygen to your wee brain...

Biggest jerk of the week award?

It's Rjm33

Recreational Vehicle Runner wrote:

Go take a run with Coach Renato Canova.

Renato can't even run 5k without stopping.

Renato is PUDGY and out of shape.

Seriously? I thought all high-level distance coaches still run/jog to a certain extent? 🤔. Doesn't Salazar still run some weekly mileage? Didn't Coach White of McFarland run with the kids until he couldn't anymore, then transitioned to a bike to monitor the workouts?

Salazar has run like crap ever since his heart stopped for 14 minutes.

He has tried Androgel and Cytomel…and he still sucks.

Alberto also stretched too much and ruined his already really sh*tty running economy.

Alberto is also now on very thin ice with this USADA investigation by Travis Tygart going on... and on... and on... and on...

Travis just never stops.

It never ends.

Bro, keep taking your medicines :)Okay?

Did you see wejo's XC video??? wrote:

Salazar has run like crap ever since his heart stopped for 14 minutes.

He has tried Androgel and Cytomel…and he still sucks.

Alberto also stretched too much and ruined his already really sh*tty running economy.

Alberto is also now on very thin ice with this USADA investigation by Travis Tygart going on... and on... and on... and on...

Travis just never stops.

It never ends.

Did you see wejo's XC video??? wrote:

Salazar has run like crap ever since his heart stopped for 14 minutes.

He has tried Androgel and Cytomel…and he still sucks.

Alberto also stretched too much and ruined his already really sh*tty running economy.

Alberto is also now on very thin ice with this USADA investigation by Travis Tygart going on... and on... and on... and on...

Travis just never stops.

It never ends.

No, it does end. It ends while confessing in person while seated on Oprah's couch.