In our last post, Pre-Running Rituals – Stretching, Joe dug into stretching in detail.
Today, we wanted to just share a short piece on the science behind it all, Specifically the science of pre-exercise stretching.
Running well is based on efficient movement. The problem with stretching before running is that it reduces the efficiency of the first few muscle contractions.
Muscles at rest are a certain length. The muscles consist of millions of fibres overlapping each other and when you stretch them, the overlap reduces, allowing the length of the muscle to increase. When you have only just increased the length of a muscle after stretching, this is not a permanent length change and the first two or three muscle contractions return the muscle to it’s resting, normal length, then your next contractions resume normal function.
This is why you see professional athletes and olympic medallists shaking and warming up their muscles before they do their sport, rather than stretching them.
There are numerous articles to back up the position that stretching before you exercise actually as a negative effect on performance, to quote but three:
“There is an abundance of literature demonstrating that a single bout of stretching acutely impairs muscle strength, with a lesser effect on power” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pubmed/20030776).
“The negative impact of static stretching on muscle strength limits the utility of static stretching before athletic performance” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pubmed/28841537).
“The usage of static stretching as the sole activity during warm-up routine should generally be avoided” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pubmed/22316148).
So, we’re saying… by all means stretch, but stretch after to loosen up again and free up your movement but when you’re thinking of stretching before running. STOP, think again, find another helpful thing to do like activation go the glutes or warming up generally. Well write about warm-ups sometime and post some glute activations too, so keep watching this space.
If you want to learn some really good activations and effective post-running stretches, get in touch with your running coach in Manchester today!
