Stretching -- Could the Oldest Pre-run Routine be a Waste of Time?

By Pete Rea/ZAP Fitness/Running Journal/September 2009

It is as accepted a practice as any in the world of athletics. From the days of elementary school gym class to track practice in high school to the highest tiers of professional athletics, generations of athletes make certain to complete this ritual on a day of competition or practice. We are of course talking about stretching, a tried and true method of injury prevention, augmentation of range of motion, and one of the more widely accepted practices of increased blood flow. Increasingly, however, during the last 15 years, coaches around the world are beginning to return to a practice common “down under” during the 60s and 70s -- abandoning stretching almost entirely.

Today we will explore both sides of the argument. Is stretching inherently a good thing? Does increased range of motion equal better performance? Could stretching actually inhibit performance? Let’s dive in head first.

In December of 2004 Arthur Lydiard gave one of the final lectures of his life at the Charlotte Running Company. Topics of conversation ranged from the athletes with whom Lydiard worked to his coaching methodology. As the evening wound to a close a young female coach asked about stretching for her runners. Lydiard responded as only he could. “Do not stretch,” said the venerable coach. “Stretching is idiotic. It simply does not work. Voodoo science.” Had these statements been made by any other coach I might have dismissed them. But this was the greatest distance running coach in history. Was he right? I scoured resources and every exercise science publication from Nova Scotia to New Guinea to no avail. Many show improved range of motion and even increased extension, but surprisingly none showed definitive cause effect to improved endurance based performance as a result of stretching. In fact many studies showed the opposite to be true: that muscles with greater range of motion were in fact less powerful. Could this be true?

These “a little tight is good” sentiments have been echoed for years by Dr. Robert Vaughan of the University of North Texas who, like many coaches who learned their craft in the Lydiard dominated 60s and 70s, believes stretching is at best suspect in terms of its overt benefits. “Tighter muscles are actually more explosive and more reactive than looser muscles,” Vaughan told a group of high performance coaches at a USATF clinic in December of 2008. “Stretching is limited in terms of its overall benefits for performance.”

Further analogies used by the “anti-stretching” camp include the credit card analogy. Take a credit card and bend it over and over and it will indeed bend over time but no longer return to its original form. Over time the card (i.e. the muscles) will develop cracks difficult to repair. Anti stretchers also point to long-term research that shows greater microtearing associated with those who stretch as opposed to those who do not.

Stretching is Instrumental in Performance
“Stretching is one of the oldest accepted practices of pre-competition injury prevention known,” says Jeremy Timlier, professional trainer and consultant to USA Swimming. “For years we have been hearing the anti-stretching advocates make a big move back to the way we were in the 1970s, but you will note that athletic careers in the 70s were about half the length of today.” Timlier believes, along with the vast majority of those in the American College of Sports Medicine, that stretching is indeed a useful tool. As evidence he and his colleagues across the spectrum of sport note that virtually every governing body from FIFA to USA Wrestling to our own governing body at USA Track and Field use stretching as an integral part of their coaching and athlete education programs. In addition, certified personal training courses on every level include an in depth look at pre-exercise stretching for almost every exercise.

Stretching has indeed been proven to provide greater extension in terms of hip flexibility, hamstring, and gluteus flexibility and the release of adhesions in key areas of attachment. Toe off from the calves and feet, that has been shown to increase stride length without overstriding (i.e. power), has also been shown to be improved with muscle specific stretching. In addition light stretching, particularly after a light pre-stretch jog, has been shown in studies at Appalachian State University to improve blood flow to working muscles and aid in post run circulation.

Who Believes What / What to Believe?
The anti-stretching camp includes most of the current Ethiopian and Kenyan National Coaches along with Olympic Gold Medalists John Walker, Murray Halberg, Kip Keino and even Bill Rodgers, America’s greatest marathon phenom, a non-stretcher, and an athlete whose first injury occurred at the age of 56 despite more than 15 years averaging more than 100 miles per week.

Vocal stretching advocates include Dr. Gabrielle Rosa, Oregon Track Club Coach Mark Rowland, and top collegiate coaches including Mick Byrne of Wisconsin, Greg Metcalf of the University of Washington and Beth Sullivan of Penn State to name a few.

The one area that most coaches tend to agree upon as we enter the second decade of the new millennium is the findings of Dr. Karl Fields (Moses Cone Hospital – Greensboro, NC) who found that “Traditional stretching routines performed during warm up procedures before exercise (static stretching and the stretching of cold muscle tissue) can improve flexibility for a short time, but there is little scientific evidence that such routines can improve exercise can improve exercise performance, reduce delays on-set muscle soreness, or prevent injuries.” In other words, while the jury may still be out, the ever increasing consensus is that a slow first couple of miles and/or a very light prime mover stretching set is more effective than the longer drawn out routines with which we grew up.

* - Without trying to sway opinion, it is worth noting for the reader that this author has coached more than three-dozen full time professional runners in the last score of years. Of those 30 some odd runners only two completed their entire careers having never incurred an injury. Neither ever stretched.

For a couple of other looks at these recent fascinating stretching studies see the links below.
http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=10...
http://freakonomics.blogs.nytimes.com/2006/04/27/is-stretchi...

ZAP Fitness is a Reebok Sponsored non-profit facility which supports post collegiate distance runners in Blowing Rock, NC. ZAP puts on adult running camps during the summer and is available for retreats all year. The facility has a state of the art weight room, exercise science lab for testing and a 24 bed lodge. Coaches at the facility include two-time Olympic Trials Qualifiers Zika Rea and Randy Ashley as well as head coach Pete Rea. For more information go to www.zapfitness.com or call 828-295-6198.