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There's interestingly no correlation between reduction in injuries and stretching. Unless you have a training incident that leads to an injury, 'wear and tear'
by weego 7y ago
There's interestingly no correlation between reduction in injuries and stretching. Unless you have a training incident that leads to an injury, 'wear and tear' injuries likely come from muscle imbalances and activation dysfunction than lack of stretching.
A decent warm up routine may happen to involve some active stretching but that's through necessity of moving in a good range.
An example being people that flair their lower leg outward from the knee as they run being correlated to acl problems. People talk about tight calves, tight quads etc but ultimately its caused by a dysfunction of glute control which can't be improved via stretching.
Also a related side note, you should almost never stretch your hamstrings, especially if you are sat a lot. That compounds the issue you'll (and most of us) likely already have with long loose hams. Couch stretch hip flexors and strength hams instead.
- nateburke 7y agoWhenever I forget to stretch AFTER a run, I feel pain the next day, and more often than not, do not run that day. I consider that pain to be a mild injury, since it gets in the way of my daily running routine.
- baron816 7y agoI get into a lot of fights with people about how stretching is a farce since yoga is so popular. Another running myth that gets brought up in the post is the “lactate threshold.” The misconception comes from the “acid” part of “lactic acid”. We’ve come to believe that your muscles producing acid will cause them to feel like they’re burning. They’re burning because they’re tired and hitting their limits, nothing more. Lactic acid is just an extra source of energy. The way you train probably doesn’t need to change, but science behind “lactate threshold” is wrong.
- dogmatism 7y agoWhat are you saying? One can be more specific, but there certainly is a physiologic definition of lactate threshold. It is the output (running, cycling, rowing, skiing, whatever, can be defined as performance as % of VO2max) at which blood lactate begins to rise above baseline. More importantly, maximal lactate steady state is the rate at which lactate production equals clearance. Above that and you'll blow up soon. Yes lactate can be converted back to pyruvate and used for energy, but above MLSS, it accumulates more than is reconverted, and energy stores will run out. What science do you think is "wrong"?
- francisofascii 7y agoMaybe this is more individual. I am extremely inflexible. If I don't stretch, my knees hurt. Sometime I will feel my knees aching mid-run. I stop and stretch my quads, and it goes away. I suppose it could be the act of stopping, but it seems pretty cut and dry that stretching helps.