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Reasons Not to Stretch

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Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#81

Post by snowwrestler »

jboggan wrote: post #43

'"Now, you listen to some of these so-called sports-medicine experts today--shit! It's just shtick. It's just something else to sell. Warming up," he scoffed, adjusting a red ascot fitted neatly into his jumpsuit, "warming up is the biggest bunch of horseshit I've ever heard in my life. Fifteen minutes to warm up! Does a lion warm up when he's hungry? 'Uh-oh, here comes an antelope. Better warm up.' No! He just goes…

Cats, including big cats like lions and tigers, statically stretch on a regular basis.

Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#82

Post by snowwrestler »

benhamner wrote: post #3

Studies like this make you question how much of our folk knowledge and wisdom is false. I stretch before and after my daily runs under the assumption that this has been reducing my injury risk. From these results, I should stop wasting time on pre-run stretches. Hopefully we'll see more studies built by attempting to support or reject the folk wisdom we've assumed throughout our lives that haven't been subjected to r…

These studies did not look at injury risk, they looked at top-end strength and power.

I'm not saying the studies are wrong, just that one must read very carefully when evaluating the applicability of this sort of statistical research. Muscular performance has many aspects--strength, power, endurance, range of motion, elasticity, resistance to injury, energy storage, lactic tolerance, etc. off the top of my head. Plus these all change over time in response to how you exercise, eat, stretch, etc.

Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#83

Post by foobarqux »

rayiner wrote: post #4
benhamner wrote: post #3

Studies like this make you question how much of our folk knowledge and wisdom is false. I stretch before and after my daily runs under the assumption that this has been reducing my injury risk. From these results, I should stop wasting time on pre-run stretches. Hopefully we'll see more studies built by attempting to support or reject the folk wisdom we've assumed throughout our lives that haven't been subjected to r…

It's not just folk wisdom. A significant portion of our medical wisdom, what many doctors pass off as science, has little basis in fact. My wife's pregnancy was eye opening on this regard.

Doctors are one of the few groups who don't think they need to justify themselves. When pressed doctors typically respond with what is essentially "trust me, I'm a doctor".

What unjustified advice did your wife get?

Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#85

Post by dougk16 »

Laugh if you will, downvote if you must, but, as with many things, I trust to my dogs' opinion in the matter: they stretch before physical activity, and so do I (for other reasons of course too).

I don't dispute the short-term performance gains by not pre-stretching, but is there a long-term cost? With performance gains in any system, there are usually trade-offs. If I were in a race to win a million dollars, you can bet your ass I'm not stretching beforehand based on all this research, but what about before my light daily jog? I feel all rickety sometimes if I don't.

I'd be interested in a history of stretching, specifically before physical activity. Evolutionary precedent has a way of shedding light on these sticky questions. For example, what kind of warm-ups or stretching did cavemen do before a mammoth hunt?

Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#86

Post by plq »

When I was playing water-polo (10+ years ago), we always did some mild stretching (a couple of moves repeated maybe 10x) after a 20-min jog session and some body-weight exercises, right before getting into pool. We were said that trying to stretch "cold" muscles was just destructive.

It's curious to see this brought up as novelty.

Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#87

Post by john_b »

bcbrown wrote: post #34
cynicalkane wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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…

I second this. While I'm not a powerlifter, I do lift regularly. Two years ago I stretched before doing anything, including a warm up. Sometimes I would be in a rush and skip the stretching. After I noticed that it made no noticeable difference, I dropped it and just did my regular warm up (run a mile). Now, before doing anything really heavy, I'll just do the movement with little weight or only body weight. I've been able to lift more and seem to have less muscle fatigue as a result.

Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#88

Post by rayiner »

foobarqux wrote: post #83
rayiner wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just folk wisdom. A significant portion of our medical wisdom, what many doctors pass off as science, has little basis in fact. My wife's pregnancy was eye opening on this regard.

Doctors are one of the few groups who don't think they need to justify themselves. When pressed doctors typically respond with what is essentially "trust me, I'm a doctor". What unjustified advice did your wife get?

When she was pregnant, my wife did a lot of research into what the studies actually said about the impact of caffeine, alcohol, breastfeeding, etc, on fetal and childhood development. The way doctors and nurses talked about it, you'd think there were conclusive studies showing major impacts from even low levels of caffeine and alcohol consumption, and not breastfeeding for up to a year.

I think the breastfeeding debate is a great example. The studies showing any non-trivial advantages are tenuous, and often fail to detect any statistically significant advantage at all. At the same time, doctors completely and thoroughly fail to analyze these decisions in a rational cost/benefit way. Breastfeeding is a tremendous burden on career women. If not breastfeeding enables a woman to get back to work sooner, get less behind on her career progression, etc, then there is a monetary benefit to not breastfeeding, a very concrete one one that must be balanced against the tenuous and uncertain costs of not breastfeeding.

Same thing for drinking during pregnancy: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/peggy-drexler/-a-loaded-questi.... I recommend reading the Peggy Drexler article, it's wonderful.

Same thing for caffeine: http://www.webmd.com/baby/news/20100721/moderate-coffee-drin.... Note that: 1) 200 mg is about two and a half red-bulls, and 2) exercising, something which doctors recommend to pregnant women without reservation, has been linked to similar increases in risk of miscarriage as heavy caffeine consumption.

When it comes to pregnant women, the medical communities recommendations are wildly unscientific and highly irrational.

Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#89

Post by bcbrown »

vidarh wrote: post #54
bcbrown wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I do powerlifting, though not competitively, and I can't agree with you that the best way of acquiring the flexibility is to do the movements. I struggled for nearly a year to improve my depth on my squats and deadlifts that way. It took in between my workouts. I increased my squats from a paltry 2/3 of my body weight and reduced range of motion to 1.5x my body weight at full range of motion in 6 months from I starte…

That's good to hear, thanks. I have always had very good flexibility, so it was never an issue for me. I do stretch my hamstrings and IT band sometimes, and static stretching certainly has it's uses.

Glad to hear dynamic stretches worked for you!

Re: Reasons Not to Stretch

#90

Post by cafard »

Expez wrote: post #61
jboggan wrote: post #43

'"Now, you listen to some of these so-called sports-medicine experts today--shit! It's just shtick. It's just something else to sell. Warming up," he scoffed, adjusting a red ascot fitted neatly into his jumpsuit, "warming up is the biggest bunch of horseshit I've ever heard in my life. Fifteen minutes to warm up! Does a lion warm up when he's hungry? 'Uh-oh, here comes an antelope. Better warm up.' No! He just goes…

This is a horrible metaphor. The lion would undoubtedly perform at a higher level if he warmed up properly prior to going out on a hunt. There are, however, tons of other reasons lions haven't evolved to 'warm up' before going hunting.

Don't the lionesses actually do the hunting?
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