I know my views on stretching don’t align with those of many other people, including some frequent visitors to this blog.
I’m a skeptic about whether stretching helps with knee pain, but if it feels good and isn’t causing further damage, well, what’s the harm?
But avid stretchers do have to be careful. I came across this article that summed up reasons not to engage in “static stretching”—that is, stretching before physical activity.
A growing body of research is showing how our views of pre-exercise “static” stretching are changing in real time—while revealing many of the ugly truths about stretching when your body is “cold.”
The dangers include a risk of injury to cold muscles and a possible decrease in performance, which of course would be ironic, considering stretching is supposed to help someone achieve a higher level of performance.
No. 3 on the list actually made me laugh:
You should warm up before you stretch.
Hmm. If I need to “warm up” before I stretch, why do I need to stretch then? It seems that the warming up has probably achieved what the stretching was supposed to.
But then again, it’s true that stretching never made a lot of sense as a “warm-up.” My favorite line here comes from Paul Ingraham, a much smarter stretching skeptic than I am: “That’s like trying to cook a steak by pulling on it.”
Generally though, most stretching is probably harmless if it’s done gently.
I think the only stretch for knee pain sufferers that I’ve reacted violently to is the one pictured in this blog post.
A hard pass on this ugly-looking stretch! I dubbed it the “Just Asking for Trouble Stretch.” 😉
