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It is nothing new, it was suspected for a while by many studies. Personally I do not practice stretching. It initially started as an experiment - as in "if I d

by guylhem 14y ago

It is nothing new, it was suspected for a while by many studies. Personally I do not practice stretching. It initially started as an experiment - as in "if I don't stretch I should get hurt ?", "ok I want to test this and see precisely how much!", ie to try to evaluate the marginal value of stretching. So far I have yet to see a negative consequence of not stretching (ie increased risk of injury, even if anecdotal experience is not very helpful) Preparing oneself to movement is something else - you do not just immediately do something point blank, at least personally I don't - I try to "get a feeling" of the movement by performing it once or twice without any load. Neurologically, for a computing equivalent, this acts like caching - your cerebellum is a cache for your physical movement equations (ie activate this muscle at this time, then t microseconds later this other muscle, etc) So just performing the movement like a mime preloads the equations into the cache - basically, it makes you more efficient! What worries me however is the amount of people you meet (ex- PT) who insist on you stretching, and who may not take no as a response - as if the refusal to stretch was just an indicative of a lack of knowledge, and therefore the superiority of their position, and that by some "moral imperative" they had to impose you the truth. I always find that weird. Just as with everything in life, wisdom of the crowd may not be indicative of the best way to achieve a given result. EDIT: for those talking about post effort stretching, there is less evidence about this. Some says it prevent too much acidity from accumulating in the muscle (lactic acid), yet this same parameter in studies on weight lifters has been show to increase muscle mass and volume. Yes it may cause pain and prevent you from performing similar activity the next day, but if your goal is to maximize the health benefits on the time spent, and not just maximize the distance run or the amount of time spent running, it might be a better idea to avoid stretching, "do with" the pain, and skip practicing until you have less pain ie skip up to a week. Overtraining exists, and just compare marathon runners to sprinters. Who visually seems the "fittest"? I'd rather look like a sprinter than a marathon runner, and also the risk of injury seems higher in distance running.

cynicalkane 14y ago
Many exercises are simply not safe if your muscles are tight or you lack the flexibility to do them properly. Swimming, weight lifting, most sports come immediately to mind.
- PlanetFunk 14y ago
  I'd say that not stretching and not warming up are two different things.
- electronvolt 14y ago
  I'd agree that there are certain movements that you really don't want to attempt without a certain amount of prerequisite flexibility, which often requires a certain amount of static stretching to achieve. However, overall flexibility seems to be a longer term condition than just pre-workout stuff. Stretching post-workout or daily but disconnected from pre-strenuous exercise seems to make you more limber/capable of movements that require more flexibility to safely/correctly do. In particular, most of the serious dancers I know stretch(ed) a huge amount (often daily) and also did fairly strenuous dance (often daily), but the static stretching and actual exercise were highly removed from each other. There are also a lot of movements in most types of dance that are either impossible or dangerous without a certain amount of prerequisite flexibility. Pre-workout warmups are also seem important for avoiding injury: if your muscles are tight/tense and you throw yourself into a strenuous exercise, my experience and everything I've heard says you're going to have a bad time. From personal experience, but every time I've injured/hurt my muscles it was during exercise where I hadn't warmed up or had done a bare minimum of warmup. Source: Mainly personal experience and what I've seen as a former competitive swimmer (high school varsity, butterfly, fairly serious), former dancer (modern; not serious, but I know some people who were part of larger dance companies), and someone who is currently involved in fairly intense bodyweight strength training (think gymnastic conditioning).
- bcbrown 14y ago
  I'm a competitive powerlifter. Your statement isn't quite true. The best way to acquire the flexibility for weightlifting movements is to perform those movements. If you aren't flexible enough to squat to the correct depth, the solution is to squat as deep as you can, and let that serve as the stretch. The accepted wisdom amongst my crowd is that the appropriate warmup prep is some dynamic movement to raise the body temperature, like rowing or biking, followed by practicing a given movement at progressively higher weights, until you are ready for the work sets. I've never heard a weightlifter recommend static stretching before training.
graeme 14y ago
What about stretching in between? Like you, I abandoned pre-workout and post workout stretching without any ill effect. I often stretch in between though, and have found it can be effective in relieving chronically tight muscles. For example, I had a 'permanently' tight hamstring that I fixed with 30 seconds of targeted stretching per day for about a month. I use it for either imbalances, or for soreness from weight-lifting. However, I'm less certain of the usefulness of what I'm doing compared to my hamstring fix. Those stretches were provided by a physiotherapist, and worked very well. My previous hamstring stretches had achieved nothing. The ones he gave me were generally dynamic stretches.
- drexel 14y ago
  I can't comment on stretching but I've found foam rolling (or other such myofascial release) to be the greatest thing ever for relieving tight muscles. Have you tried that?
  - graeme 14y ago
    Yes. I think I need to learn a few different positions, as I can not hit some muscle groups as well as others. I've also used a theracane to great effect on my shoulders.
- PlanetFunk 14y ago
  To add to drexel, foam rollers or rumble rollers are great. I've also got an orbital buffer I use on myself that, as funny as it sounds, works amazingly well.
- guylhem 14y ago
  Excellent remark : like you, I keep some minimal in-between stretching (and I pay much more attention to drinking sweet cold water or soda during effort) I do that ministretch when I "hear" or "feel" cracks that just should not occur in a given position or movement. It's as if my ankle was trying to sing the me the song if its people :-) Lately I have noticed I could also do without this last remnant of stretching if the movements could be scheduled to alternate opposite muscle groups, ie make each routine put load on muscles which generally oppose (bi/tri ceps) and concentrate your training on a different set each day, Exemples: investe in the biceps in your training today, it passively stretches the triceps, the do the triceps etc. so that at the end on your training everything is stretched even if you did not do stretching. It's not "real" stretching - just the idea that curls should go hand-to-hand with skull-crushers.
saraid216 14y ago
I want to express how incredibly odd it is (and yet fitting for HN) that you're analogizing a fairly simple physical concept in terms of computing. It's not called "warming up" because of the minor uptick in body heat. Not a criticism; just remarking on the oddity because it amused me.

by guylhem 14y ago

cynicalkane 14y ago

Many exercises are simply not safe if your muscles are tight or you lack the flexibility to do them properly. Swimming, weight lifting, most sports come immediately to mind.

PlanetFunk 14y ago
I'd say that not stretching and not warming up are two different things.
electronvolt 14y ago
I'd agree that there are certain movements that you really don't want to attempt without a certain amount of prerequisite flexibility, which often requires a certain amount of static stretching to achieve. However, overall flexibility seems to be a longer term condition than just pre-workout stuff. Stretching post-workout or daily but disconnected from pre-strenuous exercise seems to make you more limber/capable of movements that require more flexibility to safely/correctly do. In particular, most of the serious dancers I know stretch(ed) a huge amount (often daily) and also did fairly strenuous dance (often daily), but the static stretching and actual exercise were highly removed from each other. There are also a lot of movements in most types of dance that are either impossible or dangerous without a certain amount of prerequisite flexibility. Pre-workout warmups are also seem important for avoiding injury: if your muscles are tight/tense and you throw yourself into a strenuous exercise, my experience and everything I've heard says you're going to have a bad time. From personal experience, but every time I've injured/hurt my muscles it was during exercise where I hadn't warmed up or had done a bare minimum of warmup. Source: Mainly personal experience and what I've seen as a former competitive swimmer (high school varsity, butterfly, fairly serious), former dancer (modern; not serious, but I know some people who were part of larger dance companies), and someone who is currently involved in fairly intense bodyweight strength training (think gymnastic conditioning).
bcbrown 14y ago
I'm a competitive powerlifter. Your statement isn't quite true. The best way to acquire the flexibility for weightlifting movements is to perform those movements. If you aren't flexible enough to squat to the correct depth, the solution is to squat as deep as you can, and let that serve as the stretch. The accepted wisdom amongst my crowd is that the appropriate warmup prep is some dynamic movement to raise the body temperature, like rowing or biking, followed by practicing a given movement at progressively higher weights, until you are ready for the work sets. I've never heard a weightlifter recommend static stretching before training.

graeme 14y ago

What about stretching in between? Like you, I abandoned pre-workout and post workout stretching without any ill effect. I often stretch in between though, and have found it can be effective in relieving chronically tight muscles. For example, I had a 'permanently' tight hamstring that I fixed with 30 seconds of targeted stretching per day for about a month. I use it for either imbalances, or for soreness from weight-lifting. However, I'm less certain of the usefulness of what I'm doing compared to my hamstring fix. Those stretches were provided by a physiotherapist, and worked very well. My previous hamstring stretches had achieved nothing. The ones he gave me were generally dynamic stretches.

drexel 14y ago
I can't comment on stretching but I've found foam rolling (or other such myofascial release) to be the greatest thing ever for relieving tight muscles. Have you tried that?
- graeme 14y ago
  Yes. I think I need to learn a few different positions, as I can not hit some muscle groups as well as others. I've also used a theracane to great effect on my shoulders.
PlanetFunk 14y ago
To add to drexel, foam rollers or rumble rollers are great. I've also got an orbital buffer I use on myself that, as funny as it sounds, works amazingly well.
guylhem 14y ago
Excellent remark : like you, I keep some minimal in-between stretching (and I pay much more attention to drinking sweet cold water or soda during effort) I do that ministretch when I "hear" or "feel" cracks that just should not occur in a given position or movement. It's as if my ankle was trying to sing the me the song if its people :-) Lately I have noticed I could also do without this last remnant of stretching if the movements could be scheduled to alternate opposite muscle groups, ie make each routine put load on muscles which generally oppose (bi/tri ceps) and concentrate your training on a different set each day, Exemples: investe in the biceps in your training today, it passively stretches the triceps, the do the triceps etc. so that at the end on your training everything is stretched even if you did not do stretching. It's not "real" stretching - just the idea that curls should go hand-to-hand with skull-crushers.

saraid216 14y ago

I want to express how incredibly odd it is (and yet fitting for HN) that you're analogizing a fairly simple physical concept in terms of computing. It's not called "warming up" because of the minor uptick in body heat. Not a criticism; just remarking on the oddity because it amused me.