This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
When and how much to stretch before working out is one of the most controversial topics in athletics.
Especially after a recent study said it didn't make a difference if the runners stretched or not before a run.
The study divided more than 2,000 runners into two groups. One group stretched the quadriceps, hamstrings and calf muscles for three to five minutes before starting their run while the other group did not stretch.
After tracking the runners for three months, Daniel Pereles, director of sports medicine at Montgomery Orthopaedics in Kensington, Md., and lead author of the study, decided stretching didn't make a difference as injuries occurred in both groups.
Pereles found that 16 percent of the runners experienced an injury painful enough to cause them to miss a week or more of running. Injuries to the feet and ankles were most common, followed by knee injuries.
Also, the study showed that people who normally stretched but stopped stretching for the study and those who normally didn't stretch but started to do so for the study were more likely to get injured. Non-stretchers who stretched increased their chance of injury by 22 percent while those who stopped stretching for the study had a 40 percent higher chance of injury.
Flawed science • So what to make of this study? Everyone has their own opinion, so I'll give you mine.
First, researchers did not take into account the runners' posture, which is crucial in determining how one must stretch. Your posture should be the top factor in deciding how you stretch because of the way your muscles respond to loading.
Think of your body muscles as the spokes on a wheel. You want to tighten the stretched spokes (muscles) and loosen the tight ones to achieve the proper balance. If you just loosen and tighten spokes at random, your wheel will be out of balance.
Therefore a person's posture must pay attention to their body and determine which muscles need to be stretched and which need to be tightened.
Muscles can be broken into two different kinds, tonic and phasic muscles.
Tonic muscles include the hamstrings, lumbar erectors which run up the sides of the spine, the soleus or small calf muscle and the rectus femoris, the quad muscle in the front middle of the thigh. The tonic muscles generally respond to loading by becoming short and tight.
Phasic muscles are the deeper quad muscles, glutes, the gastrocnemius or large back calf muscle and abdominal muscles. Phasic muscles respond to loading by becoming long and weak.
Taking the differences in muscles into account it was ineffective for the study participants to stretch all of the muscles for the same amount of time before a workout.
What to do • Before starting an athletic event, determine which muscle or muscles are tight and stretch them. If they aren't tight, don't loosen them more. Use a contract-relax method of stretching in which you hold a stretch only for 3-to-5 seconds. This is a more dynamic way of stretching than was performed in the study.
If you have chronically tight muscles or a known postural fault, it is best to stretch again at night when you are warm. Hold each stretch for one minute or more.
Again, the focus should be on the tight muscles to loosen them and bring your body in tune.
As your body starts to come into balance, you'll find the need to stretch less and less prone to injury.
Lya Wodraska is a C.H.E.K Exercise and Holistic Lifestyle Coach. You can send her questions about fitness and health to LWodraska@sltrib.com.