Does anybody stretch anymore??

To answer your first question, "Yes, anybody and every body that beats you in races."

What irreputable studies have you been looking at that makes you think you are smarter than all the coaches and runners that have come before you?

Finally, does this mean you will start stretching once you become injured?

If you perform an stretch your chest muscles right before performing a bench press you will lift LESS weight than if you hadn't stretched.

Warmup dynamically! High knees: contract the hip flexors while dynamically stretching the hamstrings. Butt kickers: contract the hamstrings while dynamically stretching the quads....etc. Get the picture?

Alan

Every race I have ever won was in an non-stretched state.

Stretching is for events that involve actual stretched movements. Ballet, gymnastics, figure skating.

Many people have done many things for many years that did nothing working under the false pretense they we're doing something. My suspicion is "you read my thoughts" is that you do not read the journals nor are you a coach. I do read and am a certified coach. Does that make me a better runner than you?? No. But I will take this converstaion up another notch - it is my suspicion that stretching - particularily without any focus or training on how to stretch - actually leads to injuries. But my question remains - is it worth stretching for either performance enhancement or injury prevention?? Are runners giving this up?? Forum....

don't stretch. jog slow to warm up ( shuffle 5 min / jog 10 min / easy 10 min ) then open up ( if it's a workout ) stretching does nothing for me before a run. if i do any kind of stretch, i do a lunge thingy when i'm bored. for strength, some bulgarian single leg squats watching tv with a beer in my hand.

There's been over 70 studies showing that stretching is useless and even harmful to performance.

They cover almost everything, from pure measure of strength to actual performance.

They've tested it with sprint, power, and endurance.

They've tested 15sec stretches, 30sec stretches. They've tested how many stretches it takes and in as little as 1 stretch there's diminished work capacity.

Stretching is useless before competition.

And it makes sense. In distance running it's all about muscle stiffness. Elastic energy and return. A stiff spring is much better.

Warm up with easy jogging, strides, and some dynamic work.

Or if you want decreased performance, stretch.

Dynamic flexibility is much different than static flexibility.

As long as you can get through your Range of motion, why do you need more?

While we are at it, no studies have shown that stretching helps with injury prevention. There's been studies to show that stretching does not alleviate muscle soreness, nor does it help Delayed onset muscle soreness.

To conclude, stretching is worth about as much as most distance runners intuitively knew, nothing. Most runners hate to stretch yet they've been inundated to stretch stretch stretch, so they think it's necessary. Well it's not. Should have listened to their bodies.

Not disputing your post, but what about cases where a physical therapist has suggested certain stretches to help an injured athlete, with positive results? For example, IT band issues. Thx.

So, if Dean Karnazes and Scott Jurek didn't stretch, they'd be even better runners than they are now? That's hard to believe. They are already the best, most accomplished runners on the planet. I doubt that not stretching would take them to a new level.

stretching for regaining range of motion or for an already injured area is different.

I'm talking pre race/workout/ run stretching.

Post workout can be good, can be bad. It depends. In general though as long as you don't do it enough so that you increase flexibility a lot (thus losing stiffness of the system), you could benefit.

Sounds like the general recommendation should be: easy warm up walking then warm up jogging then training session then cool down jogging to walking and then to recovery drink or meal then shower. Stetching is NO LONGER in the picture in my mind - yet we hang onto this and many well meaning coaches and orthopedic docs recommend this - why??

Why do I see every elite runner at the races stretching? They are doing strides(stretching), butt kicks/high knees(stretching), and flat out stretching. I think it might have to do with helping running efficiency. Just a thought.

There's a big difference between strides, drills and static stretching.

One is dynamic, the other is static.

On your efficiency comment, study after study has shown that static flexibility is inversely proportional to running economy. The more flexible, the worse economy. Why? Because of the big role that stiffness and elastic return of energy plays in running. There's been many studies showing that static stretching worsens running economy.

IT band is a tightness issue, so stretching it is one of the things which will loosen it up.

a question wrote:

Not disputing your post, but what about cases where a physical therapist has suggested certain stretches to help an injured athlete, with positive results? For example, IT band issues. Thx.

with IT band stretches you're fighting symptoms. It's not the band itself that's tight but the overused tensor fascia lata muscle. It's a biomechanical problem that is caused by not using your glutes enough when running.

Stretches are important for preserving range of motion. It's a "use it or lose it thing", more important as you get older. Injury prevention? I'd like to know what the mechanism behind that should be.

Stretching the IT band I think is another issue with stretching. You\'ll find no evidence that stretching the IT band helps or that stretching is even possible for that matter. This band is the longest, largest tendon in the body. This tendon is actually larger than the muscle it originates from - the TFL. If you want to lengthen the \"IT band\" you do this by lengthening the TFL muscle. You cannot lengthen tendons. You can lengthen the muscle. You do this by rolling on a foam roller mostly and stretching. I believe what happens is IT band inflammation settles down because it forces the runner to stop running - not because of any stretching. Yes - they are stretching but I think it\'s mostly the rest. I think stretching has little to no role with IT band syndrome adding to the above discussion.

curiously wrote:

There's been studies to show that stretching does not alleviate muscle soreness, nor does it help Delayed onset muscle soreness.

I don't spend much time stretching before I run, usually I just jog the first mile easy then move on. However, when I am very sore, or my back hurts, etc.. why does stretching feel so darn good? Why do so many PTs recommend stretching to stop PF and ITB?

johnnyb1610 wrote:

Why do I see every elite runner at the races stretching? They are doing strides(stretching), butt kicks/high knees(stretching), and flat out stretching. I think it might have to do with helping running efficiency. Just a thought.

Yeah, and sprinters stretch religiously. As do professional athletes in other sports - soccer, football, basketball, baseball.

So, distance runners need to strength train like sprinters, but we don't need to stretch like them? I don't buy it.

I just glanced over the posts and everyone here seems to be talking about pre-exercise (or pre-workout) stretching. Without a doubt stretching before a workout will do you no good. As I understand it static, cold stretching is a great way to cause injury and to decrease the elastic energy built up in your muscles.

Before a workout, I will usually do a few drills to stretch out my hamstrings and hip flexors especially.

However after most runs I will incorporate some kind of static stretching along with the foam roller/stick. I believe that static stretching post-workout (with warm muscles) is good because it increase the range of motion in stabilizer muscle groups (ex abductors) and it seems to decrease post-run muscle pain.

So I think we can mostly agree that pre-run static stretching is no good... But what do you guys think of post-run static stretching?

Good and important topic. My generation of guys were the last to not stretch much (70s-early 80s) I don't think we were any more injured than current groups.

But I do think that the after workout stretching seems to help, and most importantly, for the millions of achilles sufferers, the heel/calf stretches definitely work.