Is Stretching Effective?

New research shows stretching does not increase performance…

Well, kind of. That is a loose interpretation of new research from Stuart McGill and Janice Moreside that can be found in the NSCA Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. 

“Improvements in Hip Flexibility Do Not Transfer to Mobility in Functional Movement Patterns”

The study set up 4 intervention groups. 1: Stretching 2: Stretching and hip/spine disassociation exercises 3: Core endurance 4: control group. The authors found that they were able to significantly increase passive hip range of motion, however, there was no evidence of any new range of motion used when tested on functional movement patterns. They concluded that programs may benefit from additional “grooving” of new motor patterns if new movement range is to be used.

New research from them shows that you can stretch a muscle and increase your passive range of motion and have no effect on your actual movement patterns.

So my interpretation is not exactly true, but it’s close.  What it means is that just by stretching and increasing your passive range motion you are only half way there. You will still move like you did before; tight and restricted. However, stretching can possibly increase performance if it is in combination with mobility exercise.

However, it sounded better than saying when you stretch follow it with mobility exercises to actually improve movement patterns.

This is what we know at Legion, but not everyone follows this approach. I had to learn the hard way with my crazy bad back injury I had from being, essentially, insanely tight and restricted.

Essentially, if you increase your range of motion of a tight muscle via stretching, that new range of motion needs to be used afterwards in order to actually have an impact.

Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you performed a body weight squat and found that you could only squat 1/2 way to parallel because your movement was restricted. It was determined that the hip flexors were preventing you from getting any lower.

You started aggressively stretching the hip flexors to increase range of motion so you could get deeper. You were able to loosen them up but when you went back to the squat you still only hit 1/4 squat depth.

Why? The stretching and mobility exercises need to be done concurrently. So while you were stretching the hip flexors you should be going back to the squat and attempting to get deeper and deeper – or performing other exercises that will allow for fuller range of motion to occur.

This will increase your functional mobility in a movement.

Why is this important?

All training, for athletes and non-athletes, is to make you move and feel better. It doesn’t matter how strong you can get if that strength can’t be displayed because you can’t move properly.

The better your range of motion and your ability to move the less your risk of injury.

What can you do about it?

Stretch and mobilize.

Let’s assume you are not in a rehab setting and are just training for either sport or body composition. During your dynamic warm up (You are doing a dynamic warm up…) perform exercises to increase the mobility of the areas that are tight.

For instance if your hip flexors are tight, while you are warming up perform some quick hip stretches immediately followed by hip mobility exercise. I.e., Perform a rear foot elevated stretch with a 3 second hold followed up with body weight squats or lunges.

I also would add glute activation exercises because chances are they are not firing properly and when the butt gets stronger, the front of the hips usually loosen up a bit.

When you go into your actual resistance training workout after completing your warm try and perform exercise in the fullest range of motion possible. If you find you are limited in range, don’t worry about increasing the weight, in turn focus on getting deeper in the exercise first.

You will see your movement quality and flexibility increase.

Mobility is more importantly than flexibility. A muscle will constantly be tight if the movement issues around the surrounding joints are not corrected.

I have found that correcting mobility and movement patterns leads to decreased tightness and tension in certain muscles.