Stretching, Part 1: Why & When

A martial artist friend came to me a few weeks ago, a little confused about stretching. Hed heard a lot of conflicting information about why, when and how to stretch for maximum benefit, and he wanted to some clear guidance. Ive since had two other subscribers ask me exactly the same question which suggests that its an excellent topic for a feature article.

WHY STRETCH?
If you try to stretch a rubber band to its limits when its cold, one of two things will happen. Either it wont stretch very far or it will simply snap. If, however, you roll it around in your hands and give it a few less intense practice stretches, stretching it to its full extent becomes easy, and the likelihood of snapping it is minimal.

Your muscles work very similarly. Doing any kind of exercise involving a range of movement your body isnt used to is just like stretching the rubber band. If you try to do it cold, youll either get a very small range of movement or you move too far and snap (or tear) the muscle tissue. Warm up first however do a few practice stretches and your full range of motion is easy to achieve safely.

Its not only during your workout that this flexibility is important. Your body works on a use it or lose it basis which means that, unless you stretch regularly, your joints grow less flexible over time. Less flexibility means less range of movement in your daily life so if you have to reach or twist to pick something up, youre more likely to injure yourself. And if you take part in a sport or training programme that involves regularly contracting your muscles (without including some kind of stretching), youll find your general flexibility decreases even faster.

Theres a third reason that many of us have been taught to stretch and thats to avoid sore muscles the next day. Unfortunately, theres not a lot of evidence that it will actually help. DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) is the aching you feel when youve pushed your muscles hard the day before. It happens because the exercise has stressed your muscles to the point theyve developed microscopic tears in the fibres. And although stretching may feel good after a long workout, there isnt a lot it can do to heal this microtrauma, so it wont have much effect on your level of soreness the next day.

WHEN SHOULD YOU STRETCH?
Many of us were taught to stretch before we do any kind of exercise. In fact, the best time to stretch depends on the kind of exercise well be doing. For simplicitys sake, were going to separate exercise into three categories: strength training that involves slow, controlled movements; training that involves quick, uncontrolled movements, and anything else.

For strength training, theres evidence that stretching before a workout is counter-productive. Strength training requires muscles to contract tightly against a heavy weight, and loosening the muscle fibres by stretching them first reduces their ability to do this. This doesnt mean you shouldnt warm your muscles up before strength training just avoid stretching them first. If you want to include stretching in the same workout as strength training, its better to wait until after youve finished your weights work.

For anything involving uncontrolled dynamic movements, however (and this would include most sports, dance methods and martial arts), stretching beforehand is important to avoid injury. Just think back to the rubber band metaphor.

For anything that doesnt fit into either of these categories, you can probably include your stretching whenever you want to. For example, if your exercise is walking (and you do a lot of walking, so its within your usual range of motion), you could stretch before, after, during or any combination of the three.

The important thing about stretching is that it should never be done on cold muscles. If youre stretching at the end of a workout, this isnt usually a problem, as your muscles will be well and truly warmed up. If youre stretching before your workout, however, experts recommend warming up (doing some kind of light exercise that gets your heart beating faster, and blood flowing to your muscles) for at least 5-10 minutes before you begin to stretch.

In Part 2 of this article, well look at different types of stretching and the right and wrong ways to go about stretching safely and effectively. Until then, if you have any specific questions about how the information in this article applies to you, and would like to go through it with a personal trainer, please contact me.
Optimum Life's Tanja Gardner is a Personal Trainer and Stress Management Coach whose articles on holistic health and relaxation have appeared in various media since 1999. Optimum Life is dedicated to providing fitness and stress management services to help clients all over the world achieve their optimum lives. To find out more about how you could benefit from online personal training, please visit http://www.trainerforce.com/optimumlife/. To find out more about holistic fitness and stress management please visit http://optimumlife.co.nz,or contact Tanja on tanja@optimumlife.co.nz.