A relative of mine is an Alexander Technique teacher. My understanding of stretching, from them, is that: - The main point of stretching is to improve your ran

A relative of mine is an Alexander Technique teacher. My understanding of stretching, from them, is that: - The main point of stretching is to improve your range of motion, for injury prevention. For example, if your hamstrings are too tight to bend at the knees and hips, you can injure your back trying to pick things up off the ground. (Corrolary: If you're already flexible enough to bend your joints in the proper ways, you don't need to stretch much; just enough to maintain that flexibility). - Stretching before exercise is mostly pointless; a warm-up is far more important. After exercise is the best time to stretch, while your muscles are still warm & loose. - The proper way to stretch is to move right up to the edge of your range of motion, then relax. It should be slightly uncomfortable, but NOT painful -- that's because pain prevents you from relaxing; "feeling the burn" is a good way to injure yourself. - Short stretches are not very effective (though of course they can still feel good). Stretches should be held for a few minutes. When you release the stretch, the muscle should feel pleasantly warm. That is to say, many people stretch terribly wrong. Thus, unless the studies cited also taught people to stretch correctly, I would expect them to show no benefit from stretching. I looked at the abstracts of a couple of the studies cited but could not ascertain how participants were told to stretch. I'd appreciate if anyone wants to spend the time to dig into the research a bit more and figure out whether any of it contradicts my relative or whether it merely supports the claim that incorrect stretching is basically useless.