Stretching isn’t limited to the yoga enthusiast, the gymnast, the cheer squad, nor the contortionist. It’s for you too.. that is if you want further range of motion, less injury potential, superior performance, and ultimately more gains.
It’s not the flashiest part of fitness, but stretching allows the flashy fitness to exist. I won’t misdirect you and give off the impression stretching will pack on pounds of muscle or cut the legs off a high body fat percentage, however it does plenty to warrant your undivided attention. In this article you’ll find: what static stretching is, the benefits, myths, when to, how to, and a list of stretches to start implementing today.
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What Is Static Stretching
Whether you’re tying your shoe or doing an overhead squat, flexibility impacts how the deed is done. Flexibility is how well your muscular and connective tissue can achieve full range of motion. Our activities depend on this range of motion.
This range of motion depends on the extent your muscular and connective tissue exercises elasticity (ability to recoil after being stretched) and plasticity (ability to maintain greater length potential after being stretched).
A static stretch is when you challenge your muscle’s range of motion to the point of at least slight discomfort, which is the first sign of resistance. This resistance will be near the furthest point they’re currently able to go.
That first sign of resistance is a reaction by your muscle spindle. The muscle spindle is a sensory receptor given the task of contracting a muscle to prevent over lengthening.. it wants to stave off injuries.
So static stretching requires a gradual lengthening of the muscle by holding a position at the first point of resistance for x amount of seconds.
When a stretch is held long enough it allows the Golgi tendon organ (GTO) to override the muscle spindle. The GTO is another sensory receptor that can be seen as the ying to the muscle spindle’s yang, because it permits the muscle to relax and reach a greater range of motion via autogenic inhibition.
Think of stretching a muscle as the opposite of contraction.
When you flex or travel the concentric portion of a lift, the muscle shortens. The eccentric portion of the same lift lengthens the muscle - it’s where you get that stretch many lifters refer to. This is why weight training is another way to increase flexibility, if form is decent.
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Don’t mind me, I’m just working on my elasticity baby
Static Stretching Benefits
There’s more than a reason athletes in all walks of life statically stretch. Some of these reasons lead to direct results, other reasons are part of the puzzle for greater performance and aesthetic benefits. These reasons include:
Fuller muscles. When you increase range of motion you’re able to recruit more muscle fibers when weight training. More muscle fiber recruitment means an increased capacity for glycogen storage [7]. More glycogen stored? Fuller muscles, exponentially so if your water intake is as it should be.
Enhanced hypertrophy and strength. Hypertrophy means muscle growth. The same reason stretching helps strength helps hypertrophy. More muscle fiber is able to be recruited at greater degrees when you complete full movements. When more muscle is fully stretched while being resisted you punch a ticket to Gainesville, as long as you adequately progressive overload.
Stress relief. Stretching is justifiably a core part of the ever so soothing practice of yoga - it calms you. Stretching won’t just assist aesthetics, it'll assist health by potentially lowering high blood pressure [8] and providing mental clarity by reducing stress.
More flexibility. The most known benefit of stretching is you become more flexible. This comes from two main avenues:
You achieve a greater tolerance for pushing your muscles to greater ranges of motion and/or you lengthen your muscular and connective tissue’s accustomed range of motion they typically travel. Essentially creating a new homeostasis.
Assists injury rehab and injury prevention. Common injuries result from chronically contracted or shortened muscles, IE tight hamstrings, or lower back troubles. Consistent stretching contributes to relaxing tight muscles and helps prevent them in the first place.
Pain relief. Although temporary, stretching muscles when sore can alleviate pain. It won’t expedite the healing of microtears, however.
Improved posture. Bad posture is often the result of overused muscles having to step in due to inflexible or short muscles not holding up their end of the bargain. Stretching relaxes overactive muscle groups and provides a possible solution to over contracted muscles.
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Stretching Myths
The Earth rotates and science updates.. the Earth rotates and science updates again. Some of these updates dispel old beliefs we shared about static stretching. A few static stretching myths are:
Stretching eliminates soreness. When muscles are overloaded you cause microtears. These tears are what eventually give you the nagging pain a day or so later. This is called delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). It has long been believed stretching decreases DOMS, unfortunately it does not [3]. Stretching has other benefits like providing temporary relief from DOMS, but one thing it won’t do is speed up healing.
Passive stretching causes sarcomerogenesis. Sarcomerogenesis is the process in which you produce more sarcomeres. Sarcomeres are structural units of the muscle. Static stretching doesn’t help generate new sarcomeres, but resisted stretching, IE the eccentric portion of a lift does [6].
Stretching won’t improve performance. Static stretching bolsters your performance via the allowance of greater degrees of movement. Take the squat for example, new clients frequently aren’t able to get parallel during a barbell squat. They tend to shortchange themselves, often out of habit and just as often because they lack the needed flexibility to go lower. This can be improved by increasing range of motion with static or dynamic stretching.
Static stretching is a warm up. More on this later, but static stretching is the opposite of a warm up. It’s a cool down, you’re telling your muscles to relax.
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When To Stretch
At this point we’ve put the eraser on some of the myths surrounding static stretching. But only after we covered the benefits. Benefits that are strong and true, yet not to be applied all willy nilly. There is a wrong time to passively stretch and there is a best time.
Why You Shouldn’t Static Stretch Before Exercise
When I think of static stretching before workouts I think of my organized basketball days as an elementary lad.
Our team would circle center court and each day a different kid would take their turn leading stretches - let the Mississippi counts ring.
What I didn’t know was we were asking our muscles to do quite the opposite of what the upcoming activity required of us.
Static stretching relaxes the muscle. If you relax your muscles before you want to activate them, you’ll get less out of them [1].
The phrase is called stretch-induced strength loss.
The only instance in which it’s fine to statically stretch prior to lifting weights or any other heart rate spiking activity is when you have tightness that would be aggravated by alternative warm ups.
In these cases a static stretch held for rounds of 2-3 seconds is serviceable, but don’t do the 20-30 second routine per muscle. That’ll hinder performance.
Pre workout should be reserved for dynamic stretching. Dynamic stretching is when you implement active movements to take your muscles through their full range of motion IE jumping jacks or butt kicks. It’ll get your core temperature up and you’ll be ready to get busy.
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Why You Should Stretch After Exercise
The best time to do a static stretch would be post workout.
Muscles are still warm, heart rate needs to settle down, and it’s a harvesting ground for improving flexibility.
After working out your core temperature is up. When your core temperature rises so does your range of motion - think of how loose you are prior to warming up versus after warming up.
This is a splendid time to do a static stretch, because you can push your range of motion further, which will increase your range potential if done consistently.
So post workout hit a static stretch. It’ll do more for your flexibility, relaxes muscles, and couples well with your cool down activities that help eliminate the likelihood of blood pooling.
Note: post workout is best, but extended static stretching is permissible any time of the day other than about 2 hours ahead of exercise.
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How To Do Static Stretching
To get the most out of your static stretching sessions follow these protocols at least 4-7 times weekly.
First: it may sound funny to warm up before stretching, but it broadens elasticity and range of motion. You don’t have to get your blood pumping as if it’s an all out workout session, but taking a few minutes to prep your muscles raises the bar.
Tip: for this purpose I like to hit two birds with a single stone. Before stretching I take a couple seconds to flex each muscle group. This muscle by muscle contraction increases blood flow, yet most importantly gives me some mind muscle connection practice, which is a key component of long term weight training progress.
Second: start stretching, it’s that simple. Hold each position for at least 20 seconds, preferably 30 and you’ve done what needs to be done. No bouncing, just a static hold that progressively “gets deeper” as the GTO takes over and relaxes you into position.
Your pain on a scale of 1-10 shouldn’t bypass a 5. If it does you’ll be doing more damage to your recovering muscles, since I know you do resistance training right 😌!?!
Note: honorable mention goes to self myo-fascial release. Stick rolling, foam rolling, massage gun treatment, or even the use of a softball to work on muscle tissue a few times weekly is beneficial.
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List Of Static Stretches
10 Upper Body Stretches
Save these upper body stretches for your routine
In order from left to right:
Lateral neck stretch
Posterior neck stretch
Anterior neck stretch
Upper back stretch
Reverse shoulder and chest stretch
Standing downward dog shoulder and chest stretch
Reverse forearm stretch
Forearm stretch
Tricep stretch
Posterior shoulder stretch
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10 Core And Lower Body Stretches
Save these core and lower body stretches for your routine
In order from left to right:
Lower back stretch
Ab stretch
Groin stretch
Glute stretch
Soleus calf stretch
Gastrocnemius calf stretch
Hip and glute stretch
Hamstring stretch
Oblique stretch
Quadricep stretch
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My Thoughts
I have vast experience with hamstring injuries. My limp hammy is known in multiple countries. And each time the limp reappears it’s when I go periods unstretched. Injuries occur for various reasons and stretching alone won’t prevent them. BUT stretching completes a conglomerate pie of injury prevention methods. Still anecdotally, without fail, my hamstring tightens and strains if I go even 2 weeks without consistent stretching.
Injury prevention includes: warm ups, static stretching, dynamic stretching, myofascial release, adequate recovery time, and appropriately overloading muscles.
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So, It’s About That Time
If you feel like playing stretch hooky is a good practice, you may be right. You may be right for 1, 2, or even 10 weeks. But once that hourglass empties.. as an “I don’t stretch” survivor I’m here to tell my story 😆🗣 you’ll wish you stretched.
Static stretch after your lifts and if you don’t have the time it’s perfectly fine to extend your muscles other times of the day, just not pre workout. And speaking of muscles, enough reading, put those muscles to use and Be Great.
Sources:
[1] ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24905918
[2] pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12202327/
[3] ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3273886/
[4] ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1250267/
[5] ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3975999/
[6] onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/ar.22484