Slashdot Mirror
Stretching Before Exercising Weakens Muscles
Khemisty writes "Back in grade school you were probably taught the importance of warm-up exercises, and it's likely you've continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes' warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but are actually bad for you. The old presumption that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds — known as static stretching — primes muscles for a workout is dead wrong. It actually weakens them. In a recent study conducted at the University of Nevada, athletes generated less force from their leg muscles after static stretching than they did after not stretching at all. Other studies have found that this stretching decreases muscle strength by as much as 30 percent. Also, stretching one leg's muscles can reduce strength in the other leg as well, probably because the central nervous system rebels against the movements."
It's like most things in that too much of even a good thing can be bad for you. It's very important to limber up before a workout, but anything can be taken to extremes.
Whenever I took swimming lessons as a kid, we stretched to avoid muscles cramping up in the middle of the water. I would take tired muscles over a leg cramp mid-stroke any day of the week.
Also when I lift, I would rather be a little weaker than having my arm freeze up as I lift a barbell over my head.
I don't think I ever had the impression that stretching makes me stronger, just protects me from cramps and overextending. Has this been proven/disproven? I'd be shocked to see so many years of sports medicine overturned by something that could be easily determined through statistics acquired by anyone working out.
My work here is dung.
For those of you who don't RTFA, the summary could be misleading. TFA doesn't imply it's best to just jump straight into exercising. Rather you still need to do some warm-up activity (light jogging, jumping jacks, etc..), and then do dynamic stretches, rather than static stretches. What dynamic stretches you should do depends on your sport.
Furthermore, since this is slashdot, you all probably have terrible posture stemming from over-tight hip-flexors and internally rotated shoulders. Static stretching can be good to loosen the problem muscles. People who bother to stretch usually focus way to much on the hamstrings, when the hip flexors are much more likely to be the problem.
That was my thought. 20 - 30 seconds is far too long to hold a stretch before exercise. A warm up should be just that - moderate activity to get the muscles ready for your workout.
When I run, I start with a brisk five minute walk, followed by some easy stretching before I begin my run, but I won't hold a stretch for more than ten seconds. You can also just stretch as you do your warm up, by walking on your toes, kicking your butt, and basically walking like you're applying for a government grant.
The 30 second stretches are for after your workout, during the "cooling off" period.
I don't care why you're posting AC
Can we please cut it out with the everybody-interested-in-technology-is-a-fat-slob jokes? And the everybody-interested-in-technology-is-socially-inept-and-has-no-luck-with-the-opposite-gender jokes? Seriously, it's getting old.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I think this entire article is a load of attention seeking BS, and I will not believe a word of it until I see a proper peer-reviewed research paper in a medical journal that debunks stretching.
While I'm sure that it is possible to overstretch a muscle, especially if you isolate one muscle and use all your opposing musculature to stretch it excessively, the implied message of this article is rubbish. There is absolutely no evidence that stretching before exercise weakens muscles (note I used the exact same phrase as the title) so long as you don't over do it.
In other news:
Breathing is bad for you!
Hyperventilating can result in a situation where you remove too much CO2 from your bloodstream leading to a failure of the breathing reflex, resulting in hypoxia and in extreme cases brain damage or death).
Exercise is bad for you!
Bodily ligaments and tendons wear out, just like any other mechanical part, so the more you use them the faster they wear out. The body does have a regenerative effect, but it is not unlimited and the deterioration of the body's ability to maintain joins manifests in arthritis and other related conditions.
Water is bad for you!
You can drown.
These articles brought to you by the Department of Attention Whores with no Sense of Truth or Accuracy.
I hate printers.
Sounds like someone needs to get laid.
The word "acute" in the title of 3 out of 4 of those papers highlights that what I was saying, i.e., it is not stretching but over stretching that is bad for you. I don't think these papers would suggest that a rugby player get to the field and get into the scrum 20 minutes after getting out of bed and with no preceding activity.
Well done, it's not often that someone can actually cite references to prove that they missed the point.