Examining the Role of Stretching by Pierrie Miller

[Pierrie Miller is an Athletic Development Intern at Athletic Lab]

Stretching. It’s something that most individuals are introduced to at a young age, especially those who’ve played sports. One of the most common forms of stretching used during the warm-up is the static stretch. Often, athletes don’t question the reason why they are stretching, they are just told that it’s required. This form of stretching involves holding the stretched muscle in the relaxed position for 10-30 seconds (and sometimes longer). My question is: how important is it to include static stretching in your warm-up? Specifically, when training athletes who will conduct large explosive movements through a full range of motion in their training or sport. Seemingly, it would be more appropriate to implement a warm-up routine that better prepares the athlete for those specific movements that are used during competition/training. This is where I recommend dynamic stretching, conducting movements that allow the joints to functionally pass through the full range of motion (Nadelen, 2012). Dynamic stretching better prepares the body for activity by allowing the muscles to “get warm” in preparation for exercise.

Static stretching is not all bad and it can be used during the warm up on certain occasions, but only after light jogging or other movements that warm the muscles that are intended to be stretched. When Bingul (2014) tested the optimal interval time for peak performance using a dynamic stretching protocol, he found within the study that those individuals in the dynamic stretching routine group showed a 14% peak performance increase within the hamstring complex when compared to the group that did not conduct a stretching routine. Within this same test, it was also found that the static stretching group showed no significant reduction or improvement in peak performance increase, which leads back to the question of the benefit of static stretching. Giving the importance of total training time, one does not want to spend excess time conducting training that will not directly positively affect the athletes performance.

I am not saying that static stretching is useless, I just question thEe importance of it in the warm-up. In the case of balance and stability, Chatzopoulos, Galazoulas, Patikas & Kotzamanidis (2014), conducted a study that tested the acute effects of a static stretching, dynamic stretching, and non-stretching protocols on individuals ability to perform balance, stability and agility test. The study proved that dynamic stretching was the superior method of warming up, resulting in significant increases in the test subjects balance, agility and movement time. Chatzopoulos et al. (2014) suggest that due to the relevant movements involved during dynamic stretching they had a stronger correlation to the testing protocols. As it seems static stretching has been shown to have negative impacts on performance when it comes to sports that require the athlete to produce power (Y ld z, illi, Gelen & G zel 2013) ie. Sprinting, Olympic lifting, and shot put. At a competitive level,a any loss or detriment in performance could be the deciding factor that moves you from first to last place. As it pertains to static stretching within the warm-up every athlete/performance coach should consider this question; is the risk worth the reward?