Stretch after, not before. Warm-up before + stretch after = no dumb stretching injuries + improved flexibility.

And for schlubs and others who aren't competitive distance runners, improved flexibility is a unequivocal plus.

I regularly run for about a half hour at an OK pace, don't stretch before or after, and nevertheless don't believe any article which suggests that this is a good idea.

nevertheless don't believe any article which suggests that this is a good idea

"Common sense" often has an iron grip on the mind of the peasantry.

improved flexibility is a unequivocal plus

Precisely the kind of received wisdom the article calls into question.

Doesn't Gina Kolata have a not-great reputation among the science bloggers?

4: Agree completely. Fro instance, many people would give credence to something they read simply because it appeared in the newspaper of record.

Fro instance

Racist (and/or anti-semite).

Yes, but isn't this article only addressing the impact of flexibility on athletic performance? There's a whole lot more to it than that, particularly for people who are exercising in pursuit of improved overall health. As I said, for schlubs and other non-competitive athletes, better to accept 10-12% higher energy demands during athletic endeavors (better weight management anyway) while increasing their ability to age gracefully.

8: Possibly. Others would believe that egregiously stupid typos are correlated with sexual prowess.

Negatively correlated, surely.

Maybe one could stretch/warm up without actually, you know, feeling "the burn."

No burn in warming up. Just means do it slowly for a set period of time (usually past the point of frustration at how slow you're going).

11: That's what common sense would tell you.

Matthew Yglesias, modern day Genghis Khan.

better to accept 10-12% higher energy demands during athletic endeavors (better weight management anyway) while increasing their ability to age gracefully.

I agree, actually. But I think it's pretty interesting that something that's such a regular part of training is basically unsupported by any studies. Mostly, I think it speaks to the poverty of our understanding of how the body works. I'll bet a jillion dollars that inflexible sprinters aren't faster than flexible sprinters, but I'll also bet that the studies haven't looked at the difference flexibility makes when running at distance pace versus sprint pace.

I think it speaks to the poverty of our understanding of how the body works.

I agree completely. I was just (over)reacting to what I read as an extrapolation from what's good for competitive athletes to what's good for us regular folk. I can be open to the idea that flexibility may be overrated for competitive athletes. But energy efficiency is over-rated for regular folks who then just have to spend more time to get the same energy cost. If it's true that flexibility makes a given workout cost 10-12% more energy, that's just an added bonus of flexibility.

There are also good and bad ways to stretch, which the article never seems to mention, nor the studies. I've certainly injured myself while stretching (torn hip muscle! fun times) but I also repaired the injury by stretching -- differently -- gentler stretches held longer.

Well, if you're not satisfied with mere common sense, see "Increasing hamstring flexibility decreases lower extremity overuse injuries in military basic trainees." Hartig, D. E., & Henderson, J. M. (1999) The American Journal of Sports Medicine, 27, 173-176.

Found that with about a minute of googling. This is way outside my field; maybe a meta-analysis would turn up the opposite result. *shrug*

In my martial arts class, we do gentle mobilization stuff and then dynamic stretches before training but all the static/passive/isometric type stretching comes after.

That sort of regimen, dynamic stretching pre-training, static/passive after, seems fairly orthodox and also, thankfully, well supported by the literature.

Stretching can definitely be a contributing factor in some injuries, though. I have a small meniscus tear that my physio seems to think is being exacerbated by a combination of very good hamstring flexibility [necessary for kicking] and fairly poor quad flexibility. The stretching imbalance making the injury worse.

The canonical ballet class does about 45 minutes of strength, balance, and technique training before a five minute stretching period, then twenty minutes of what might look more like dancing to the normal observer.

I'm not surprised by the finding, except that it applies to running. In some sports, there's a tradeoff between power and stability and flexibility, where if a person is too flexible, she won't be able to stabilize her body in other moves. Michael Phelps, e.g., is reported to be clumsy on land because of the flexibility he needs for the water.

Athletes are all morons, freaks, and psychopaths, so who cares?

21: What about the apocryphal ballet class?

I stretched when I ran xc in high school. I run pretty regularly now, and I don't stretch but I do warm up. In my experience, most running injuries are caused by increasing mileage too quickly. Also, I tend to run negative splits, which feel safer to me, but that could be superstition

I disagree with 9. It's really hard for overweight people to start running, even though they burn calories incredibly quickly. If running is the main fitness activity you do, you're better off trying to get faster and go longer because focusing obsessively on burning calories is likely to make you hate running and not want to do it any more. Whereas running faster or longer than yesterday will have the opposite effect.

I think the upshot is there are trade offs in sports like anything else. If you want to be flexible, stretch; if you want to be more biomechanically efficient, don't.

Negative splits are definitely the way to go.

I didn't mean to support obsessive fixation on calorie burning, but I do believe that there are living-your-life benefits to flexibility and, given that, the fact that flexibility might cost 10-12% in energy efficiency shouldn't be a negative for non-competitive athletes. For those trying to make the most of the 45 minutes they can squeeze out of their day for physical activity, it could also be a plus.

What 9 said. Whoever KRK is.

The measure of value of stretching as presented in the article is for increased performance in other athletic activities.

Also, this in the article is amusing:

"Isn't it funny, though, that something that should be calming can actually cause stress because you think you have to do it?"

All wrong, all wrong! You have not achieved the proper yogic(tm) frame of mind if you have not cleared your mind of the outside observer telling you what you should or should not be accomplishing! I am not kidding!

Also KRK in 26, I see. But what the heck is a negative split?

Michael Phelps, e.g., is reported to be clumsy on land because of the flexibility he needs for the water.

You're thinking of ducks, Cala.

A negative split is doing the last half or part of your workout faster than the first half/part.

re: 21

Yeah, our class would be five minutes of warming up and dynamic stretching. An hour or so of technique work, building from the simple to the elaborate. Then into maybe another half an hour of drills but this time with the drills geared towards strength and stamina.* The finally, half an hour or so of sparring [which we only really do when properly knackered by everything else] followed by maybe ten minutes of stretching and cooling down.

* Probably much less 'strength' work than in ballet or in 'traditional' asian martial arts.

You're thinking of ducks, Cala.

And Phelps, who is forbidden by his coach from running, and who fractured his wrist a few months ago when he stumbled getting out of a car.

You have not achieved the proper yogic(tm) frame of mind if you have not cleared your mind of the outside observer telling you what you should or should not be accomplishing!

Yes, this is very difficult! Impossible for me, I suspect. I go, I work on my practice, I get into a slippery state of mind where it seems less and less imperative that I overcome my laziness, and then doing yoga withers away just like the statist apparatus of an idealized communist society.

The idea that people think that the point of yoga is to be calming, and particularly that it's supposed to be automatically calming is... well, I was going to say "bizarre," but that's not quite right. It's symptomatic of something, though.

This is fantastic news. I hate stretching. I will now run cold and report back. Long live science!

But maybe it's not *because* he's flexible in the water. Maybe this is just a lucky case of a clumsy dumbass finding the one arena in which his lack of coordination isn't a major handicap.

Others would believe that egregiously stupid typos are correlated with sexual prowess.

I've heard this is true.

And Phelps, who is forbidden by his coach from running, and who fractured his wrist a few months ago when he stumbled getting out of a car.

Probably drunk, again.

Others would believe that egregiously stupid typos are correlated with sexual prowess.

Spurrisngly, they're rong.

Doesn't Phelps also have freakishly (no judgment) large feet? Easy to stumble over, I'd think.

Is it assholish of me to request that KRK please change his/her pseudonym, which looks like KKK to me every damn time I see it?

Yes, but it wouldn't be if your reason was that it looks confusingly similar to the abbreviation for "Knecht Ruprecht".

Is this better? Blame my parents!

It also means "neck" in Slovak, but surprisingly enough that's not why I use it.

Strething is good if you want to be flexible. Thats about it (i remember reading one study that said stretchign during workouts increased strength gains, but i haven't seen anything further). so if you can't rech your toes, do some stretching.

This also makes sense in that a lot of the way energy is conserved during running is by the stretch & rebound in the body, if you're too lose you lose the sproing.

I've just started working with someone who teaches exercises that are somewhere between physical therapy and strength training (something I would never have done if the person hadn't been highly recommended) and it's impressive how different it is to work with someone who has extremely detailed knowledge of how the body works.

In that case most of the exercises are geared towards engaging muscles that most people don't use and I like that, while no explicit stretching is involved, the effort of putting your body in odd shapes and activating new muscles does get you to move differently.

I warm up a bit when I play tennis, but truth to tell, I could give a shit whether I stretch, and in some cases, I'm perfectly happy just jumping right in and playing. I've always thought stretching and formal warm-ups were sort of b.s., no matter how authoritatively some people say you gotta do it. I do accept that you can't go from 0 to 60, sure, but in any game that lasts longer than a 100-yard dash, time enough for that.

I go, I work on my practice, I get into a slippery state of mind where it seems less and less imperative that I overcome my laziness, and then doing yoga withers away just like the statist apparatus of an idealized communist society.

Seriously (for the final time, I know when I'm beaten), when you do yoga seriously, and I don't mean the hot yoga that's all the rage, it's just you and your body, nothing and nobody else. You're having a conversation with your body, something that's dialogic only to the extent that you may ask yourself whether it's okay to go that extra inch now, or is it not.

One of the best yoga teachers I had made us a tape that explained in the first minute that we should only be doing this hour-long thing if we'd turned off everything else. Otherwise we might just want to do some basic stretching and stuff.

Seriously (for the final time, I know when I'm beaten), when you do yoga seriously, and I don't mean the hot yoga that's all the rage, it's just you and your body, nothing and nobody else.

I wasn't disputing you! I was just saying that this state of seriousness isn't easy (for me) to achieve.

Parsimon is out of date. Yoga is all about being more in touch with your sexual organs.

48: I wasn't sure. What you said could have gone either way. God knows I had to leave the room with uncontrollable giggle fits for the first while when I first started taking yoga from an instructor who was pretty serious about it. She was amazing, she didn't lack a sense of humor, but when we got down to it, we were supposed to get down to it.

It's not really seriousness, it's quietude or mindfulness. If that makes sense.

49: Yoga as "sexercise"? This confirms my suspicion that Manhattan is a borough of well-dressed triflers.

It's just possible that yoga helps in that regard too.

On the other hand, a smallish yoga class of the same people who've been doing it together for months, so that during the deep relaxation period (at the end, just lying on your back travelling with guided imagery) a few people fall asleep and someone starts snoring; or during other things maybe someone farts and everyone chuckles, does wonders to, uh, ground you. Freakin' hippies.

Yoga is all about having copious amounts of free time.

53: That's why white people like it.

53: Not really. Not any more than any other pursuit. Like an hour 3 times a week?

The most efficient runners, those who exerted the least effort to maintain a pace, were the stiffest.
once i saw a very fast runner, his legs were moving very fast, but his torso did not change its position at all, not jumping up and down or loosely
moving his shoulders forward one by one as people do usually when run
i don't remember how his arms moved
i just noticed then that the trained people run differently than us
how people can observe something and draw conclusions without dropping it as not meaningful or significant, it's really a gift

Long distance running always seemed like something that shouldn't require much stretching just b/c the motion is never extreme and the exertion is never 100%. But what do I know? I hate running.

I have to stretch before exercising b/c otherwise I'll injure myself. I stretch afterwards to further improve my flexibility. My flexibility is truly atrocious otherwise. But I'm playing basketball and football (among others). Those are sports where it's pretty easy to hurt yourself if you haven't got warmed up and loosened up ahead of time.

As others have mentioned, this study doesnt mean that flexibility is still not a good thing.

Just that it doesnt really help long distance running.

Static stretching decreases muscle force output for a period following the stretch. Google for the papers. So, don't do static stretching before exertion. Do it after exertion.

Dynamic stretching establishes range of motion and doesn't decrease force output. So, do dynamic stretching before exertion.

Distance runners basically rely on the elastic energy stored in their tendons for efficiency. So being inflexible is a benefit for them. But distance runners are a really poor model of health and fitness. Unless you're into distance events don't do what they do.

Yeah, what 59 said. Kurtz's book is quite good for summarizing this stuff.

And is entertainingly hostile. There's a "Questions from readers" section where the answer to about half the questions is "What are you, stupid? Did you even read the book?" In slightly more formally Eastern European diction, but pretty much like that.

This is the meta-analysis in the article:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9368275?ordinalpos=6&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

Perhaps the problem with this article is that the premise is wrong. Kolata makes the assumption that either a) stretching is to done to prevent injury or b) people stretch to improve performance in long distance running.

The problem with those assumptions is that it's way too limiting. For one thing, it doesn't consider flexibility as a primary part of fitness, along with strength, endurance, speed, balance, and power. Stretching may not help ultra-long distance runners, but for those trying to achieve all around fitness goals -- a fast mile, a handstand, a heavy bench press, etc. -- flexibility and thus stretching are pretty damn important. And distance running is a poor example of a measure of athleticism because it is technically simple. Ask an olympic weightlifter, rock climber, or hell, anyone that works on their feet if stretching helps them. They'd all say yes.

/lurk

once i saw a very fast runner, his legs were moving very fast, but his torso did not change its position at all, not jumping up and down or loosely

that's what i try to do. keep the legs turning smoothly, with as little bouncing and pounding as possible. try to get all your energy into going forward; eliminate vertical movement. it feels a lot like 'spinning' in cycling. and, as in spinning, your hamstrings will start to get involved because you're bringing your heels up higher, and turning them over faster.

it takes concentration, at first.

distance running is a poor example of a measure of athleticism because it is technically simple

it can be done simply: go out and run, however you can, till you're done. but there are good efficient and injury-minimizing techniques which may not come naturally, that you can work on. and if you get bored with running on roads, there's cross-country and orienteering, where you aren't even running on trails - full speed across open terrain. sometimes at night.

51: The "well-dressed" part is greatly exaggerated, in my experience...

Last weekend I tried that God damned "exercise" you bastards go on and on about. In the course of "warming up" I stretched out my right leg, heard a "pop" in the vicinity of my knee, and have been miserably limping around ever since. Damn all you youths (Emerson excepted) and your moronic fads.