No, the intent is not to go into the age old “to stretch or
not to stretch” debate. I put that subject in the “Believe what you want”
category – “Some will believe, Some won’t, some will prove and some will
disprove it”. What I do wish to do is to
discuss some articles I’ve read.
A few months ago a good friend and training partner of mine sent out a link to an article, ‘Stretching to prevent or reduce muscle
soreness after exercise’, a study done by Robert D Herbert,
Marcus de Noronha and Steven J Kamper1.
The aim of the study was
to determine the effects of stretching before or after exercise on the
development of delayed-onset muscle soreness (DOMS).
So the first question is why? I’m reading this article and
I’m thinking, interesting but why would you do a study to see if stretching
reduces DOMS when, in my experience, stretching can actually cause DOMS? I
mean, as recently as last week I felt the effects of my yoga class while doing
my brick session the following day. Perhaps a study should rather be done on
the effects of stretching on DOMS after DOMS has already set in, but then
experience tell us that just about any movement helps to alleviate that tight
sore feeling.
Naturally this had me thinking a bit more about the whole
subject and about what should be important for endurance athletes. What is it
we’re trying to do when we go for a massage, or do Yoga, Pilates, Thai Chi or
Gyrotonic™ or whatever new derivative is launched next week? The answer, for me
at least, is to restore Range of Motion.
I’ve read two very good descriptions dealing with endurance
sports and range of motion. The first description I took from an article on
TrainingPeaks.com:
“Year-Round Strength Training for Triathletes, Part 1: The Off-Season” by Shane Niemeyer2
“It's important to remember that
endurance training is repetitive and mechanical by nature. Throughout the course of an athlete’s season
there’s an accumulation of thousands upon thousands of individual repetitions
in a limited range of motion occurring in one plane. A great example of this is
cycling, where the athlete performs thousands of pedal strokes in a fixed plane
(hips in the saddle and feet clipped into the pedals with force directed in a
very linear way). Since tissue remodels along lines of stress, the affected
joints and tissues become very strong in a limited segment of the continuum,
thereby destabilizing the joints which are designed to move through multiple
planes and ranges of motion. All of this increases the risk of injury for the
athlete as they are unable to effectively reduce, stabilize, and produce forces
dynamically in all planes and ranges of motion as the joints are designed to
do.”
The second one is from an article I found on
sportsmedicine.about.com:
“Stretching and
Flexibility for Athletes” By Elizabeth Quinn3
“We
adapt to what we do. If we consistently play one sport, or perform the same
(limited) movement patterns over years, we will adapt to those patterns.”
Guess which one I prefer…
Given that there is a reasonable amount of
consensus that the repetitive nature of our sport can affect our range of
motion, it seems only sensible that we place some focus in our training to reduce
any negative effects on our range of motion. Elizabeth Quin’s article articulates this
quite well and is well worth reading but in summery - including and doing
strength workouts in your training program may be more important than you
thought, so do them and post exercise stretching could be very important, even if
it doesn’t reduce DOMS.