The Current Research on Stretching and Flexibility is Flawed!

Transcription

1 Transcript from: Original Article: The Current Research on Stretching and Flexibility is Flawed! Hi. I'm Brad Walker. A few weeks ago, I published an article titled, Proper Stretching, with the subheading; That's Not How You Use Stretching. And in that article, I made the comment that some of the research on stretching and flexibility is flawed, and that drew a couple of comments. So, I wanted to take a few minutes and just explain more fully what I mean by the research is flawed. But, before I do that, I just want to comment on a couple of mistakes that I see a lot of people making when they are interpreting scientific research or research studies. The first mistake I see is that a lot of people only read the conclusion of the research study, and this is a big mistake. Now, I can understand it because a lot of studies that are published online will only show you the conclusion or sometimes even just an abstract of the conclusion. Then, to read the full story, you have to pay to actually access it. So, I can understand why a lot of people only read the conclusion. But, the problem with that is that there's no context to where the conclusion came from. So, you don't know exactly how the study was conducted, you don't know the methods used, you don't know the procedures that went into the study. And reading the conclusion without knowing all that; is like taking it

2 totally out of context. So, firstly, if you are going to try and interpret research, then make sure you read the whole thing. The second mistake I see a lot of people making, which is related to the first mistake, is that most people just regurgitate what someone else said about a research study. And guess what: That person probably only read the conclusion. So, it's really important, when you are interpreting research studies, to make sure you look at the whole study, read the whole thing, and get the context of how the study was put together, and how the study came about, and what they were trying to achieve in the first place. So, let's get back to my comment about a lot of the current research on stretching and flexibility is flawed. Now, let me explain that by giving you a bit of a story or an illustration. Imagine that you're about to run onto the sports field. It doesn't matter what sport. It could be soccer, football, baseball, basketball. It could even be cycling or swimming. Just imagine you're about to run onto the field and the coach says to you, "Hey, you should do three sets of sit-ups, three sets of push-ups, and three sets of lunges before you run onto the field." You go, "Well, why should I do that?" And the coach says, "Well, that'll make you a better athlete and that'll prevent injury." Well, I don't know about that and I think anyone who's got a little bit of knowledge about strength and conditioning or sports coaching will know that doing a few push-ups before you run onto the sports field isn't going to help. And, if you did a study where you had one group who did those exercises before they ran onto the field and another group who didn't, I can pretty much guarantee that the results you would get would show no significant difference between the two groups.

3 Essentially, that's what a lot of the studies on stretching and flexibility are doing. They're taking two different groups. They're getting one group to do a few stretches before they run onto the sports field. So they'll, for example, do a few hamstring stretches, do a few calf stretches, maybe a few quad stretches, and then go and play their sport. And then what the researchers will do is look at the two groups after they play their sport. They'll compare performance. They'll compare injury rates and so forth. Some of these studies are done over a short period of time, maybe only six weeks. Some are conducted over a longer period of time, like six or twelve months. But, in the end, what happens is that there's no real significant difference between the two groups. So, whether they stretched before exercise or they didn't, there's no particular benefit or no particular perceived benefit. But, the problem or the flaw comes because that's not how you use stretching. You don't just do a few stretches before you run onto the sports field and expect that you're going to be a super athlete or bullet proof to injury. That's not the way you use stretching. So, if that's not the way you use stretching, and this is separate to a warm-up of course. As part of a warm-up, you do use stretching, but that's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about the research studies that have been conducted on stretching and flexibility, and nine out of ten of them follow this type of procedure. Two groups of people, a stretching group, a non-stretching group, do a few stretches before you run on the field, see what the differences are after you've played a sport. So, if that's not how you use stretching, how do you use stretching? Well, as I explained in the article, you use stretching in exactly the same way as you use strength training. So, for example, a coach, a strength coach, would look at the

4 athlete, look for weaknesses, look for imbalances, look for areas where a specific strength is important to that person's sport, and then they design a routine, a strength routine, to compensate for those weaknesses, those imbalances, and so forth. And over the long term, three months, six months, twelve months, those strength improvements will help the athlete. It's exactly the same with stretching. The coach looks at the athlete. They look for weaknesses. They look for imbalances. They look for areas where stretching or improved flexibility will help their sport. And, then, they design a stretching routine or a stretching program that the athlete uses to improve those weaknesses and imbalances. Over the long term -- again, three months, six months, twelve months -- hopefully, those imbalances go away, those weaknesses go away and, therefore, that translates into improved performance on the field and a reduction in injury. So, when I say that a lot of the research is flawed, I meant that the way the research is carried out is flawed. So, this is unfortunate because it gives people the misconception that stretching is of no benefit at all and that's certainly not the case. So, I hope that's cleared things up a little bit. I want to make one point before I finish up and that is I'm in no way against scientific research or scientific studies. They're very valuable, but they have to be used in context or in proportion with all the other research and all the other anecdotal type evidence that can be gained. So, I hope that's helped. I hope you've enjoyed the further explanation. What I will do is I'll make sure that I include a link to that original article somewhere on

5 this page so you can go and read it if you want to. In the meantime, stay healthy, keep stretching, and God bless. Bye for now. Transcript from: Original Article: