Do you stretch as part of your warm-up for walking or running workouts? A study presented Friday at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons' Annual Meeting reported that that warm-up stretching had no effect on whether runners sustained an injury or not. It didn't prevent injuries or result in more injuries.
But if warm-up stretches are part of your routine, don't stop so soon. They found that runners who changed their stretching routine had a 40% higher rate of injury. So, if you stretch, keep stretching or slowly taper down the amount of stretching you do as part of your warm-up. If you never stretch during your warm-up, then there is no reason to start now. Stretching after a workout or as its own separate activity may be good for flexibility.
The study followed over 2700 runners for three months. Half were assigned to a stretching group and half did not stretch before their runs. Runners in the stretching group spent three to five minutes stretching their quadriceps, hamstrings, and gastrocnemius/soleus muscle groups immediately before running. They were followed for three months and at the end of that time, the study found that stretching before running neither prevents nor causes injury. The factors present more often in runners who had an injury that kept them from running for a week or more were:
- A history of chronic injury or injury in the past four months
- higher body mass index (BMI) BMI calculator
- switching pre-run stretching routines.
Injuries: The runners had a total of 220 injuries over three months. These included knee, foot/ankle, hip and back injuries as well as stress fractures, muscle tears and groin injuries. It is interesting that the injury rate over three months was a full 10% for these runners. In general, walkers sustain far fewer injuries than runners.
Source:
Daniel Pereles, MD, "The impact of a pre-run stretch on the risk of injury in runners" 2011 Annual Meeting Paper Presentations, AAOS, Feb. 18, 2011.
Photo © Wendy Bumgardner
I hate the way the media dumbs down and hypes up these preliminarily studies just to make headlines. No wonder so many people are confused and loosing faith in “science”.
ONE study does not make it an absolute fact folks! The media needs to stop presenting the results of individual small studies as absolute fact with big headlines like the one on this article. This article should have been titled “One preliminary study finds no link between stretching and injury prevention”… not “Warm up stretching doesn’t prevent injuries” .
It seems very limited. Type of stretching? After exercise? etc.
Mike, from Feb. 21 says it very well. And I for one,….but I would like to give the public the benefit of the doubt and think that I am one of tens of thousands,…of intelligent, informed, independent thinking persons,…..will:
> less frequently go to web pages like this with dumbed down shock value headlines
> less frequently even consider patronizing brands/advertisers who use these pages.
(this, coming from a potential advertiser. I have completed 14 marathons, a 50 miler, an ironman, hundreds of shorter races. I know hundreds of enthusiastic amateur runners, tri-geeks, walkers, hikers, skiers, bikers. I know of none who have had discomfort or injury as rarely as me. And yes, I stretch regularly, intelligently.)
Science means doing studies, even on things we believe in through tradition and practice. The researchers were from George Washington University and the USA Track and Field Association (USATF), and the USATF has an interest in keeping athletes injury-free. I think I reported dispassionately on the data, leading with the conclusion the researchers drew. I would have PREFERRED to write a story that said that stretching DID help prevent injuries, and write lots more stories showing which stretches were best. But that’s not what this study found. I could ignore it, but I am a scientist at heart and I don’t favor ignoring new data. Instead, it should be a spur to conduct more studies and see if the results are replicable.
Gary, for the benefit of beginners to exercise like myself, please define what intelligent stretching is?