My Alexander Technique friend Gerry Foley has recently sent me an article he has written about stretching, its importance or otherwise pre-exercise. The gist of this is that while many people feel that this is important — and engage in some very dramatic stretching exercises — that there is no scientific basis for this.
I thought some of you would be interested in this. The article also links to a paper published in the Journal of Exercise Training which found that pre-exercise stretching had no effect in reducing the risk of injury. A later paper published in 2007 found that pre-exercise stretches had no impact on subsequent muscle soreness.
Over vigorous stretching can, though, lead to injury.
The right exercise for the right muscles, Gerry Foley.
Fair comment, but I tend to stretch just to get the muscles & ligaments limbered up before I kick off a distance walk.
Also reduces the creaking sounds that seem to come from parts of my anatomy these days
Ah, creaking sounds. I know them well
Don’t really understand this. I’ve never done any stretching before exercise or, more importantly, walking. I wasn’t aware there was any such “science” about it so I’m not really interested in any refute; nor would it bother me if there was any “science” on this. As Bob Dylan said, you don’t need a weather man to tell you which way the wind is blowing. This concerns personal bodily awareness, which varies in terms of its accuracy and personal variables. But the key word is “personal”.
Interesting!
Can all those Olympic athletes and their physios and trainers really be wrong?
*goes off to read it*
I’ve read it now.
Interesting again. This bit confused me, though:
Once we have allowed the muscles to lengthen, we can then gently warm-up to whatever level of activity we wish.
Isn’t gently warming-up simply a process of gently stretching the muscles?
You’ll have to ask Gerry. I have no idea. I am editing a podcast with hi, though ….