According to a recent study from USA Track and Field, stretching before running has no impact on whether or not you’ll wind up with an injury. At the same time, if you normally stretch, you’ll increase your injury risk by quitting cold turkey.
Here’s the scoop:
The researchers split up 1400 runners aged 13-60 into two huge groups. One group was instructed to do a 3-5 minute series of static stretches focusing on the lower body prior to their workouts. The other group was instructed to skip the stretching, but to otherwise run the number of miles.
At the end of three months, they discovered that 16% of the runners in both groups had suffered a “running injury.” In this case, a running injury was defined as one that was severe enough to force the runner to take at least a week off from running.
In other words, stretching before running “neither prevented nor induced injury when compared with not stretching before running.” Interesting.
But what’s more interesting (at least to me) is the relatively high rate of . Overall, nearly 1 in 6 runners got hurt bad enough to miss at least a week of running during that three month period. If you ask me, that’s a lot.
Another interesting finding was that injury rates were similar for men vs. women and young vs. old, and that mileage, flexibility, and level of competition had no effect on injury risk.
So what causes injuries? The study identified two variables: body mass index (BMI) and the occurrence of a recent or chronic injury. The only other risk factor was that, for people who normally stretch before running, their risk of injury doubles if they suddenly stop stretching.
What about you? Do you stretch before you run?
Source: via
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I wish they would have looked at the runner’s gaits, whether or not they were heel-striking, and whether or not they foam rolled. Those are more useful to me.
Active stretching (IMO) is more useful as a warm up than static stretching anyway.