Increase in range of motion

Training Q&A [Moderated]
1

Hello,

I was reading one of the articles cited in the article “Mobility explained” (Can chronic stretching change the muscle-tendon mechanical properties? A review - PubMed) and I got a question about increasing range of motion. According to the article, by following a stretching protocol one can increase the range of motion but that does not meaningfully change the mechanical properties of both muscle and tendon. But let’s say a person can’t get the crease of the hip below the knee on the squat and said person desires to improve his range of motion to get to that arbitrary depth.

If I’m not mistaken just by squatting you can already increase your range of motion. But if one would combine squat training with a stretching protocol, would it increase even more the range of motion? Or would the range of motion increase faster ?

Thanks for taking the time to answer,

Martilopez

2

I don’t think this has been studied directly. The changes in tissue stiffness from static stretching tend to be pretty transient (~10-20 minutes) before returning to baseline, in addition to typically being non-specific to the desired task. Training towards / through a given range of motion seems to be a better way of inducing longer-term adaptations.

We don’t tend to recommend much static stretching, but you are of course free to give it a shot and see what happens. I would just be cautious about drawing confident conclusions from it since you wouldn’t have a good control / comparison.

3

Ok, thanks for the answer!