Although people have found new ways to mobilize joints and lengthen muscles, static stretching is a reliable friend. Here is how you should be stretching to get the most out of it.
Oh, stretching. For a concept that has been around in training since the dawn of man, it is still wildly misunderstood. There’s so many conflicting ideas and so little research that it’s still hard to determine what works, what doesn’t work, how long you should stretch, and so on.
Let’s talk about what is known to be true, what is still up in the air, and then I’ll give you my final recommendation as to how you should approach stretching.
I wrote briefly in my blog about foam rolling on what flexibility is. When it comes to flexibility, we want to improve it in order to meet the demands of life and our sports. If I want to be able to comfortably step into my truck bed to shovel the mulch out of it for my garden, I want to have enough flexibility at my hip extensors to meet the hip flexion (driving your knee to your chest) demands of stepping up there. If I want to sprint faster, then I need to also have enough flexibility at my hip extensors to meet the hip flexion demands of sprinting.
There are many things that go into flexibility, not just your muscles. Your tendons, ligaments, fascia, skin, and joint structure all play a role. Obviously, your ball and socket hip joint is going to have more range of motion potential than your elbow joint. Also, gender is a component. Females tend to be more flexible than males. Older people tend to become less mobile with age because of the process of fibrosis, or the act of muscular degeneration and replacement with fibrous tissue (this could also be attributed to an increased sedentary lifestyle and decreased movement).
Muscles and their surrounding tissues all have what is known as elasticity and plasticity. Elasticity is the ability for a tissue to return to its original resting length after a passive stretch. Plasticity is the tendency to assume a new and increased length after a passive stretch. So, it makes sense that a passive stretch might help benefit our overall flexibility.
Furthermore, the more people stretch, the more they can tolerate the discomfort of stretching. And, like I talked about in the foam rolling blog, you have these golgi-tendon organs and muscle spindles that are a part of your peripheral nervous system that also hold control of your flexibility.
Fortunately, if you’re an individual with limited mobility (flexibility), there are ways to fix that! You can of course gain range of motion (ROM) through training and proper movement. Today, however, we are going to mostly discuss one of the most important, debated, and neglected ones: static stretching.
Static stretching gets a bad rap and there’s some merit to this negative connotation.
Static stretching was used in the olden days (and still annoyingly often in the present days) of training as a warmup. People would go into the gym, stretch a body part for a minute with no other form of warmup, and then train that body part and wonder why it tore off the bone. I’m sure at one point in your life you got in a circle with your sports team before a game and stretched. Then you all got confused about why Johnny sprained his quad or how Sally tore her hamstring. Due to the Sally’s and Johnny’s of the world, stretching got a negative reputation. Stretching equaled injury in the same way ice and numbness equaled healing (make sure to check out my blog on why you should never ice your injuries).
But, stretching isn’t inherently bad. The way we have been stretching is inherently bad.
I dissed research on stretching in the beginning of this blog. However, I want it to be clear that research up to this point has mostly failed us on how to stretch. When it comes to when to stretch, the research is pretty clear.
In order to improve the effect and benefits of static stretching, stretching should be done after activity or competition, not before. The reason for this is that having a warm body, which occurs after activity, increases the elastic properties of the collagen within muscle tissue and tendons. If this doesn’t make sense to you, try this. Buy two rubber bands. Put one in the freezer for a bit. Take it out and then try to stretch both of the rubber bands. Did one of them not perform very well? I’m sure I don’t have to say which rubber band is going to struggle in this scenario.
You don’t have to wait until after your workout or game to stretch either. If you’re a particularly tight individual, you might benefit from two stretching sessions a day. To do this, all you have to do is a general warmup to increase your body temperature, and then you can stretch. Go on a short-low intensity run, do some moderate intensity core training, etc.. Once you’re warm, you’ll get the benefits of the stretch session without the risk of injury!
We know when to stretch, but how do we stretch. This includes in what positions and also for how long.
One thing is true: a dedicated flexibility program is an absolute necessity if you want to increase your flexibility. Anywhere from 2x to 5x/week of static stretching has been shown to improve flexibility. Like I said earlier for my tighter individuals in the crowd, the more the better.
When it comes to how long we should hold a static stretch, the waters get murky. In the NSCA Essentials of Strength and Conditioning textbook, they assert that the literature is pretty unclear of the exact guidelines. They’ve pulled out of the little research that there is that holding a static stretch anywhere from 15-30 seconds can provide ROM benefits. Anything over 30 seconds, they say, is a point of diminishing returns.
Unfortunately, all of the research they cited on stretch duration is at least 17 years old. When I did a brief search, I couldn’t find any recent articles (within the past 5 years) studying stretch duration, out of the few that existed in the first place.
One study I did find from 2003, A comparison of two stretching protocols on hip range of motion: Implications for total daily stretch duration, measured two different stretch protocols (duh). They had participants stretch their hamstrings twice daily for a total of 1 minute each time. Individuals would stretch one of their legs for 30 seconds, rest, and then stretch for another 30 seconds. On the other leg, they would stretch for 10 seconds, rest, and then repeat that 6 times for a total of one minute. These two protocols were repeated twice a day. They found that, after 6 weeks, both legs experienced significant increases in ROM. Also, there was no difference between the two sides. So, stretching for a total of one minute of total duration per muscle group, no matter the method, seems to be effective. This seems to contradict the 30 second rule by the NSCA (although, this study did not attempt to hold a stretch for over 30 seconds).
Then, if it weren’t confusing enough, Dr. Kelly Starrett, whose take on mobility and movement I appreciate, gives us something completely different. He states that the research “unquestionably asserts that it takes at least 2 minutes to make soft-tissue change, which means that 2 minutes is your minimum therapeutic dose per position,” (Starrett). Um, what? What research? Where did you find such research?
“Starrett is probably wrong in asserting 2-minutes is the bare minimum for making flexibility improvements in soft tissue.”
Of course, I could absolutely be missing some new studies that have come out more recently. If you find a study that agrees with Starrett, please let me know, because I’d love to read it to have a better understanding on the best duration to stretch.
So, now I have to give you a recommendation after getting mixed signals from the biggest strength and conditioning organization in the world, actual research, and then a highly respected physical therapist.
Based on my research and my experience, what I will say is this. I will agree with that 2003 study that one minute is appropriate. I will also take their stance that however you get to that one minute mark will yield similar results. So, hold your stretch to near end-range for a total of one minute. Whether that be with 10, 20, or 30 second consecutive intervals or one entire minute. I disagree that holding stretches over 30 seconds has diminishing returns, which is backed by Starrett’s research (wherever that came from) as well as my own anecdotal experience.
I will say that, since we can get significant mobility improvements from stretching up to the one minute mark, that Starrett is probably wrong in asserting 2-minutes is the bare minimum for making flexibility improvements in soft tissue. Also, if you’re holding stretches for 2 minutes at a time, that will take away from you stretching more tight tissues. So, it’s probably more efficient to hold stretches for only 1 minute and stretch more joints.
How to Stretch
We stretch after activity or anything that warms up our body temperature. Then, we hold our stretches for one minute per muscle group/joint.
However, how exactly do we stretch? This is something that the NSCA, Dr. Kelly Starrett, and myself all agree on. The NSCA states that you should not compromise joint integrity in order to stretch. Starrett asserts that you should be in good positions while trying to mobilize in positions that look like the movement you’re trying to improve (i.e. an Elbow Instep Lunge to improve the bottom of a squat).
This means that all of those good movement techniques that you’ve learned in the weightroom apply to stretching. Making sure you hold good shoulder positioning, lumbar spine neutrality, and so forth, are essential. Here is a good example of what to do and what not to do when it comes to stretching the hamstrings.
In this image, you can see this individual doing the classic toe touch stretch for their hamstrings. Unfortunately, they are completely rounded at their spine and compromises their spinal integrity.
Instead, a hamstring lunge with a neutral spine can be a better alternative at ensuring spinal health while also not upsetting any nervous or vascular tissues that are also being stretched in the process.
To recap, here are the Galaxy Fit Lab Essentials when it comes to static stretching:
References
Cipriani, D., Abel, B., & Pirrwitz, D. (2003, May). A comparison of two stretching protocols on hip range of motion: Implications for total daily stretch duration. Retrieved July 27, 2020, from https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12741862/
Haff, G., & Triplett, N. T. (2016). Essentials of strength training and conditioning. Champaign, IL, IL: Human Kinetics.
Starrett, K., & Cordoza, G. (2013). Becoming a supple leopard: The ultimate guide to resolving pain, preventing injury, and optimizing athletic performance (2nd ed.). Las Vegas: Victory Belt Pub.
John is passionate about getting people fit. After work, you can find him reading and watching Formula 1.
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