Chapter 7 question 8 page 29 of the Bridge indicates that stretching is “never” recommended. What is the reason and backing for this position? I thought that Off day or end of workout static stretching was ok. Along the same lines, I have heard that one should never static stretch your hamstring such as in the hurdle stretch. Is this true? Will hamstring static stretches actually make your squat weaker?
Heh, a bit of bluster there, no? If I had to re-write that now, I would say we do not routinely recommend stretching, meaning static, band-assisted, PNF, or similar modes that most would consider conventional stretching. We don’t recommend it because it costs time and doesn’t seem to do anything with respect to reducing soreness, improving recovery, boosting performance, reducing injury, and so on. If people want to stretch because they like the way it feels, that’s fine. I don’t think stretching has too big of an impact on strength development long-term, if any, but would generally not recommend it before training.
Quick question for clarity: is the claim that stretching does little for injury prevention during exercise or that it does nothing to prevent injuries in a more generalizable sense (whether that injury happens during exercise or other non-exercise related injuries)?
During activity, as this has been directly tested. Regarding injuries at large, I don’t think most people claim stretching reduces non-activity-associated injury rates. I would have to clarify what someone meant by that as well to potentially have an opinion.
What if someone wants to stretch to improve their mobility in certain parts of the body? For example, someone new to swimming wants to stretch their shoulder so that they’re able to do backstrokes.
Would stretching be recommended then or is it still not the right solution?
I do not think there’s good transference for most forms of non-specific stretching. Practicing backstroke and similar progressions through that movement are likely to be more effective.
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Apologies in advance if this is one of those topics where it’s easy to make the question seem muddled.
Regarding the “non-specific” stretching, this is similar to the resistance training take, correct? For example, if I am training to maximize my bench press, OHP may give me some transference, but it would be more effective to train with the specific bench press goal in mind?
The assumption here seems to be that we know what we want to specialize in (or to use a term that might raise Dr. Feigenbaum’s hackles, what we want to “optimize”). Is there anything to be said for the cases when we don’t have a specific mobility specialization need but just want a general improvement? Similar to the idea of the “General Strength & Conditioning” template, what (if any) recommendations would you give to someone who just wants to improve/reduce risk in day-to-day stuff like installing a starter on your car, getting into low spaces, or, hell, just putting your shoes on standing? I’m assuming (maybe incorrectly) that if we have no specific reason to DL above 250lb, you wouldn’t advise we ignore further improvement once we get there, and so, by extension, why would we neglect mobility because there isn’t an explicit specialization goal? Or is it that there is simply no known health benefit to increased mobility (perhaps because, as you mentioned above, it’s only been studied in the context of sport-specific exercise)?
I know Dr. Baraki has mentioned the benefits (e.g., lower incidence of back pain) from yoga etc. can be attributed to “when people move more, they feel better.” I’ve tried some mobility programs in the past, and anecdotally I admit I had less pain (particularly lower back pain), when I was doing them. But given the explanations posted about the lack of benefits from stretching, I’m not sure if that was an anomaly.
Yes, both strength and mobility are specific.
Is there anything to be said for the cases when we don’t have a specific mobility specialization need but just want a general improvement?
If someone has a personal goal of improving general mobility, they will need to spend time working on different positions. Outside of static displays of mobility, I don’t think the best use of time to improve ROM or tolerance of certain non-static positions is static stretching.
Similar to the idea of the “General Strength & Conditioning” template, what (if any) recommendations would you give to someone who just wants to improve/reduce risk in day-to-day stuff like installing a starter on your car, getting into low spaces, or, hell, just putting your shoes on standing?
Stretching does not reduce risk of injury based on available data, so I would likely target movement, exposure, and practice.
I’m assuming (maybe incorrectly) that if we have no specific reason to DL above 250lb, you wouldn’t advise we ignore further improvement once we get there, and so, by extension, why would we neglect mobility because there isn’t an explicit specialization goal?
Improvements in strength seem to track with improvements in health, as there’s much overlap between the two processes, I think. There’s no such correlation with flexibility improvement.
Or is it that there is simply no known health benefit to increased mobility (perhaps because, as you mentioned above, it’s only been studied in the context of sport-specific exercise)?
It has been studied in many contexts and does not appear to reduce risk of injury, improve recovery from injury or exercise, or improve performance on tasks reliably.
I know Dr. Baraki has mentioned the benefits (e.g., lower incidence of back pain) from yoga etc. can be attributed to “when people move more, they feel better.”
Yes, movement is generally helpful compared to not when dealing with pain.
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Thanks for the detailed explanation. Not to beat a dead horse here, but I was a little confused between the first response where you indicated the injury risk part was related to exercise-induced injury but in the last response you indicated injury rates have been studied in many contexts. Is that to imply many sports-specific contexts?
Yes, exercise-induced injury is not the same as sports injury, if exercise is being performed recreationally and not being performed as training for or competition in sport. For example, injury risk while walking for exercise would be an example of exercise-induced injury and injuries occurring during cross country cycling during a race or preparation for a race would be an example of a sports injury.
To continue beating on this very dead horse, injury rates have been studied in many different contexts spanning recreational, occupational, and competitive sports activities.
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Static stretching before workouts might tank your strength and performance, so it’s a no-go. Stick to dynamic stretches for warm-ups. Save static stretching for post-workout or rest days.
The reduction in performance is probably overstated, especially since max performance during a workout isn’t really the point/necessary. FWIW, we don’t routinely recommend dynamic stretching in the traditional sense for warm ups, nor do we routinely recommend static stretching.
Just to see if there are any organs to harvest from this dead horse (for science): since the term “mobility” has occasionally been bastardized to mean “circus flexibility”, is it better to conceptualize “useful” mobility as simply training to extend range of motion competently? Dr. Baraki has mentioned occasionally programming in “weird” exercises into programs post-injury (usually involving range of motion exaggerated beyond traditional lifts, i.e. ATG single leg squats, Jefferson curls, made up things, etc). This was a part of my program structure with Dr. Miles as well. I assume the idea of “strength through length” is at least a potentially useful one for “GPP”? It seems intuitive that if you’ve practiced deficit sumo deadlifts or similar that lifting a heavy dresser between your legs during a furniture move would be less novel. (None of this pertains to static stretching by the way, or even really dynamic stretching).
I do think strength (and ROM) adaptations are specific to how they’re developed. Training a wide variety of movements with different demands is likely beneficial for developing proficiency and tolerance to a wider variety of tasks.
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