Soreness after Exercise not Prevented by Stretching Out

[Lisa]

Studies show that stretching before or after exercise has little or no effect on muscle soreness between half a day and three days later, a team of Cochrane Researchers has found.

Many people stretch before starting to exercise, and some stretch again at the end of a period of exertion. The aim may be to prevent injury, to promote higher performance, or to limit the chances of feeling stiff in the days after the exercise.

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I just don't know if I believe this or not. Maybe it is a psychological thing, but I honestly feel that I always felt it helped my stiffness.

What are your feelings on this?

 

[Ceicei]

If I stretch afterwards, this reduces the stiffness. Although I may still feel sore, at least I don't feel stiff. If I don't stretch out and otherwise keep moving, I will feel sore AND stiff. Soreness goes away pretty quickly (unless there is an injury, which feels differently).

That said, if I keep in good physical condition, then there is very little soreness or stiffness happening unless I use some muscles in a new way that I haven't for a while or push physically harder than usual.

- Ceicei

 

[Brian R. VanCise]

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I just don't know if I believe this or not. Maybe it is a psychological thing, but I honestly feel that I always felt it helped my stiffness.

What are your feelings on this?

Personally I find that stretching afterwards has no effect on how sore I am in the next few day's. Stretching before is just a smart way of trying to insure that you do not pull a muscle.

 

[morph4me]

I do some light stretching before as a warm up, but I usually do my real stretching afterwards when my muscles are warm. I feel I get a better stretch that way.

 

[terryl965]

Personally I find that stretching afterwards has no effect on how sore I am in the next few day's. Stretching before is just a smart way of trying to insure that you do not pull a muscle.

I agree with Brian all it does before hand is help prevent soem sort of accident but it has little effect on me afterwards.

 

[Sukerkin]

I'll third that vote for stretching before hand to help ensure you don't pull a muscle.

The 'soreness' felt after hard excercise is actually something that's a sign that you worked hard enough to do some good. If you don't feel sore then you've worked within your limits; that's not a bad thing in and of itself but it does mean that your muscles have not had demands placed on them that they will grow to meet.

 

[searcher]

I am going to take the position of the American Council on Exercise and say that it does lessen the pain from DOMS(delayed onset muscle soreness). ACE has done a lot of research on this subject in conjunction with the ACSM and they have come to the conclusion that it does in fact lessen the effect. If you are still sore it may be an overuse injury in the making.

 

[MBuzzy]

I think that people are FAR too different to have a study like this blindly applied to everyone. Personally, stretching afterwards helps a little, but not too much. Enough to notice a difference, but if I worked out hard, it doesn't matter how much I stretch.

 

[Empty Hands]

Think of it this way: soreness is a sign of an actual muscle injury, usually small tears. This happens when you push your muscle beyond its limits. Stretching may prevent pulls, but it won't prevent you from pushing your muscle past your usual limits. This can happen when you are warm or cold.

That said, I won't stop stretching before hand to warm up. I'm getting older after all.

 

[Kacey]

I stretch/warm up before working out to prevent injury; I stretch after working out to improve my flexibility. I don't know that stretching, per se, helps me avoid soreness the next day - but specific things, like extending my legs up a wall for 10 minutes when I've worked my legs hard, to help the fatigue poisons drain out, do help prevent soreness, at least for me. So does having a cool down period (which may or may not include stretching), as I find that stopping cold makes it more likely I'll be sore the next day.

As far as this particular study goes - certainly, I think follow-up is required.

 

[Logan]

Based on personal experience, I find stretching helpful after exercise. It helps a little in relieving muscle pain but the main benefit is maintaining or increasing flexibility by not letting compressed muscles (depending on what exercise is actually done) shorten.

I also find gentle stretching (after warm up) when sore helps speed up recovery.

 

[searcher]

Are you eating any carbs after you workout? You should have an intake of 1.5g of crabs per kg of bodyweight within 30 minutes of an intense workout.

 

[shesulsa]

I think there's a few things wrong with the article and the premise of the argument.

First, and I have to add a caveat because I don't know what their "100-point scale" consists of. The article does not differentiate any scores between stretching before training as opposed to stretching after training, the type of stretching performed, whether the subjects were adequately warm when stretching beforehand, the stretching routine, etc.

My points:

• I personally rarely see people stretching before exercise who have warmed up adequately before doing so - they have breathed a little, lifted their knees a few times, bounced a couple times, swung their arms and then started stretching. This is not adequate "warmth" for the body to stretch - a person should be damp from effort and have no cool areas to the body. Toes should be warm, fingers warm, face warm, scalp warm, ears and nose warm - everything should be warm and damp from effort before stretching.
• It should be understood that any stretching before the training portion of a work-out session is for maintaining range of motion, pure and simple - you generally will not gain flexibility at this point, rather keep your range of motion open and free, perhaps warm up those last few small muscles, ligaments, tendons and keep the joint juices flowing.
• Static stretching should be done post-warm up and pre-training such that there is NO BOUNCING, no pulsing. Many people do this or retreat from their stretch to stretch again. A static stretch should be approached to 90% gradually, held for at least 30 seconds for maintenance, then gradually and completely released. Second stretch to 95%, final stretch to 100%.
• Many people stretch a hamstring once and call it stretching. That's not stretching - that's posturing and a completely different approach to the muscles and flexibility.
• Dynamic stretching has been proven to increase flexibility yet should only be done post-training or after an extensive warming routine. Dynamic stretching should also be done every other day, just like weight training. These types of stretches, for increasing flexibiliy, should be held for a minimum of 10 seconds and followed by a static stretch for 20 seconds minimum.
• "Stiffness" is a relative term like "pain." To me, the criteria should be one's range of motion at time intervals after the training session and should be considered with muscle swelling, tissue gaining, overuse injury and strain.

Static stretching should be used to test and maintain passive range of motion in the joints and can be a great indicator of unhealthy strength ratios which can definately bring about injury.

Dynamic stretching should be used to increase flexibility and immediately followed by passive stretching.

Using both of these tools at their proper times with proper circulation and in proper proportion, your training routine can be altered to suit YOUR individual needs which can only aid to better ratios, better range of motion, more revealing evaluations.

"Stiffness" is, I think, a term used for muscles which are fatigued, a little swollen, a little resistant to use during the resting portion of your life. Getting *properly* warm and using static, passive stretching certainly can't hurt unless you're already hurt.

So in general ... no, I don't agree with the article as written.

 

[cwalker]

Exceptionally good points Shesula. I too found the article vague on the details of the exercises performed and the type of stretching done. Also we don't even know if there was any type of double-blind mechanism used to avoid "leading the witness". I feel the article is pretty useless as anything more than a water-cooler anecdote. It would have be nice if they had provided a reference to the original study.

 

[Cruentus]

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I just don't know if I believe this or not. Maybe it is a psychological thing, but I honestly feel that I always felt it helped my stiffness.

What are your feelings on this?

What helps stiffness is getting the blood flowing to the area and filtering out some of the lactic acid and stagnet energy. If he area is "warmed up" before a workout, there is less of a chance of injury. Soreness is curtailed by "warming up" the area as well.

These can all be accomplished by stretching, or by simply doing another activity to get warm like jogging in place or sitting in the hot tub.

BUT, we stretch because RANGE OF MOTION is also essential to muscle strength and injury prevention.

So, I tend to only do light stretching and more active stretches (like arm and leg swings) before a workout, because you can actually injure yourself if you stretch to much while cold. Then, I reserve my stretches for after a work out.

And if I am really sore, I stretch and do some range of motion exercises throughout the day. This helps get the blood flowing and heals the muscles.

So, regardless of what the one study says, there are other studies to support what I am saying as well. It's just splitting hairs on the science behind it, in my opinion, when from a broad point of view stretching is very beneficial, even if scientifically this could be achieved through other means.

 

[rutherford]

Think of it this way: soreness is a sign of an actual muscle injury, usually small tears.

Sorry, this theory is just about as dead in the water as the old Lactic Acid build-up in the muscles theory that preceded it. Although, you can still find professionals and even doctors who subscribe to both.

The actual cause of DOMS is still unknown.

But, we can certainly describe our experience with it empirically. And range of motion exercises, being metabolically prepared for the activity (warmed up), and active recovery in following hours or days have all worked for me and many others in lessening the feelings of DOMS.

I'd be interested in more particulars of this study. What was the exercise component? What was the general fitness level of the participants? How were the stretches performed? Basically, everything except for the conclusion.

 

[Laurentkd]

Sorry, this theory is just about as dead in the water as the old Lactic Acid build-up in the muscles theory that preceded it. Although, you can still find professionals and even doctors who subscribe to both.

The actual cause of DOMS is still unknown.

Hmmm... I received my BS in exercise science just 2 years ago, and the muscle tearing theory was the dominating theory in the field at that time. What evidence can you share that this has now been discarded by most in the field? I would certainly be interested in evolving my opinions if the studies out there show something different.

 

[Cruentus]

Hmmm... I received my BS in exercise science just 2 years ago, and the muscle tearing theory was the dominating theory in the field at that time. What evidence can you share that this has now been discarded by most in the field? I would certainly be interested in evolving my opinions if the studies out there show something different.

Right. I'm no doctor, but the muscle tearing theory coupled with the lactic acid buildup theory seemed dominating. I would be happy to learn more if that is wrong, though.

 

[rutherford]

Hmmm... I received my BS in exercise science just 2 years ago, and the muscle tearing theory was the dominating theory in the field at that time. What evidence can you share that this has now been discarded by most in the field? I would certainly be interested in evolving my opinions if the studies out there show something different.

I cannot share evidence that the majority of the field has discarded the theory. It is my opinion that they should do so, and I expect that the field will slowly move in that direction.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/eclkgth9nwd9ytt2/

That above article is pretty typical of the mounting evidence against the skeletal muscle damage theory.

Unfortunately, I don't have a theory of my own to advance. Even if it is an adaptive rather than a healing process, there are still many questions about causality unresolved.