Static Stretching: What Role Does It Play?

If I had a dollar for every time I’ve had someone say to me, often with a shameful tone, “I know I should be stretching more”, I would be a fair bit richer than I am now. This guilty confession has happened  when speaking with friends, acquaintances or physiotherapy patients. 

Each time I am told this confession, a debate occurs within myself about how to respond. How much to further inquire and then what to discuss with them to help to ease their conflicting feelings about what they are doing and what they think they should be doing in regards to stretching. How I respond depends on many factors. Sometimes we have a lengthy discussion and other times diving any further does not make sense at that time. 

The purpose of this article is to lay out the main points about potential benefits, and sometimes lack of benefits, of stretching. You can then decide for yourself what makes sense to have in your routine, without shame or cognitive dissonance between what you think you should be doing and what you are actually doing.

Before we proceed further into the benefits that stretching does and does not provide, let’s define static stretching. When I refer to static stretching, I am talking about holding a muscle group in a lengthened position for a prolonged period, generally 30 seconds or more. 

Now that we are on the same page, let’s first look at what static stretching (here forward referred to as simply stretching) does not do:

1) Stretching does not play a role in a standard warm-up prior to exercise.

I will start this description by saying that like with most things, there are exceptions to these stretching guidelines. Exceptions to my statement that stretching does not play a role in exercise warm-ups are when the exercise in question has significant flexibility requirements. In these cases in order to be able to do the movements of the exercise or sport safely and effectively you need to stretch into those particular movement patterns as a part of your warm-up. An example of this would be a gymnast stretching the splits for a prolonged period prior to doing a beam routine with splits in it. Most of us are not doing gymnastics beam routines as our regular exercise, so while a gymnast will often stretch to warm-up for their sport, they are the exception, not the rule.

For the vast majority of warm-ups, having static stretching as a part of them is not necessary and often counterproductive. Here is why. When we elongate a muscle group for 30 seconds or more, the muscle(s) initially attempt to contract and counter the stretching load. They then relax. As the muscle(s) relaxes, the target muscles and soft tissues are then truly being stretched. This relaxation of the muscles has its own benefits (that will be discussed later), but in terms of being a part of a warm-up, having the muscles be relaxed is counter-productive.

During your exercise session, you are most likely going to require your muscles to do work. You’ll want them to contract, produce load and possibly display some power and agility. Having a relaxed muscle does not set that same muscle up for success in the upcoming workout.

In most cases, the stretching done during a warm-up is unhelpful. There will not be any benefits to your workout, but also usually no negative repercussions (other than some precious lost time on your part). If your workout involves high speed, maximal efforts then static stretching may be taking a few percentage points of performance from you.

All this to say, unless you are doing movements similar to the gymnastics splits during your physical activity, stretching does NOT play a useful role in your warm-up.

2) Stretching does not decrease your risk of a future injury.

It is in the context of thinking they could have prevented a currently frustrating injury that I most commonly hear people say that “I know I should have been stretching”. 

Let me set the record straight, a stretching routine to prevent injuries does not exist. When injuries happen, there are generally many contributing factors and rarely a lack of having done a particular kind of stretching routine is within the mix. The exception to this would again be similar to the gymnastics example above, if you attempt to do a sport or activity without the required flexibility, a stretching routine to prepare for the sport will be useful.

This lack of injury prevention benefit is even true with hamstrings! Having less flexible hamstrings does not mean you are at a greater risk of injury. In addition, preventing a hamstring injury, or other muscle injury is more about managing and gradually building up the loads that the muscle is exposed to (which can be done systematically with a progressive strengthening program) than any stretching routine.

3) Stretching does not rebuild your tissue after injury.

While stretching can sometimes have a role in symptom management, as will be discussed shortly, stretching is not the primary tool when rehabilitating after an injury. In fact, often stretching a muscle or tendon that is injured to attempt to reduce feelings of pain and tightness ends up irritating the injured area. This stretching tension can stir up pain symptoms, but does not load the tissue in a way that encourages tissue healing and remodeling.

Instead, it is loading a tissue through strengthening that cues and encourages the injured tissue to rebuild and repair, usually without the irritating effects that stretching can sometimes have.

Now let’s look at what stretching does do:

1) Stretching can help with relaxation, both specific to a muscle and in general.

As discussed in relation to stretching and warm-ups, when a muscle is held in a stretched position, the force of this stretch cues the nervous system to attempt to contract the muscle fibres to oppose the stretching force. When this stretching position is sustained, generally  for 30 or more seconds, this nervous system response stops and the contractile muscle fibres instead relax. This localized relaxation of the muscle being stretched can temporarily help a specific muscle group that was feeling tense to then feel relaxed.

In addition, this localized nervous system reaction to a sustained stretch also has a more generalized and systemic effect. After stretching specific muscle groups our whole bodies can feel more relaxed and in more of a parasympathetic or rest and digest, relaxing state. 

It is because of this general relaxation benefit that a lot of people find doing a pre-bedtime stretching routine to be useful.

2) Stretching can be useful in increasing your flexibility.

As discussed with the gymnast needing to do the splits example, stretching can be useful if you are looking to increase your flexibility in a specific way. When this is the case, stretching the target muscle(s) for 30+ seconds consistently can gradually result in increased flexibility as your tissues adapt to this lengthened position that you are regularly placing them in.

Summary

As with most exercise guidelines, your own personal preferences are important when deciding how to apply them to your life. 

With that in mind, here is when adopting a stretching routine can make sense:

• If you already have a stretching routine that you enjoy doing

• If you are looking to improve in a specific aspect of flexibility

• If you want to try stretching as a means of location-specific or general relaxation

If you are unsure of whether or not stretching makes sense as part of your health and exercise routine, know that it is not a central pillar of health. It is also not a key part of warming up prior to exercise, preventing future injuries or healing from current injuries. Rather, moving consistently in ways that challenge your strength and promote cardiovascular health are the foundations of exercise routines for long-term health.

Do you have specific questions about how to adjust your own exercise or stretching routine? That is a great reason to book a session with a physiotherapist.