Stretching: before or after a workout?

The common question of practitioners when doing bodybuilding or running training is: should i lie down Classical physical education at school left us a legacy: stretching before exercise.

When finishing a gym workout, some also recommend stretching to reduce muscle soreness caused by strength exercises. These are traditions that have been repeated for decades, but is there scientific support for such an activity? Get it here.

Popular opinion argues that yawning prevents injury, but it’s a myth!

Systematic review studies, a type of study with high levels of evidence, have historically evaluated the effectiveness of yawning. Research from 2003 and 2008 concludes that static stretching, the most popular movement in which we stand still for a few seconds, is ineffective in reducing the incidence of exercise-related injuries.

In a review of more recent studies, the results were no different. Researchers from Denmark collected 25 studies presenting 3,400 injuries with more than 26 thousand people. Various types of exercise were compared to prevent injuries: strength, proprioception, stretching or multicomponent (when several types). Stretching showed no protective effect, while weight training worked best.

There isn’t enough scientific support to recommend stretching before exercise to prevent injury. An important aspect is that injuries are multifactorial, that is, they involve different aspects (physical, emotional, situational, among others). Do you want to protect your body from injury? Starting to lift some weights seems like a good move.

I remember going to the gym for the first time in my life, and at that time my teacher told me to do some stretching for a few days after training so that I don’t have any more pain. I’ve never forgotten that, because the pain in my muscles after training reminded me of this as the measure didn’t work. When I knew how to look up this question in science, I looked.

There will be belief that stretching will relax trained muscles by reducing tension and possibly relieving muscle soreness that begins later. Does science support such a hypothesis? NO. The effects of stretching before or after exercise on muscle pain were analyzed in a systematic review published in the Cochrane Database. Of the 12 studies, the main news items from the study were:

• Stretching before a workout reduced pain the next day, but only half a point on a scale up to 100.
• Stretching after training reduced pain the next day, but only 1 point on the same scale.

The results showed that stretching had little or no effect on muscle soreness felt in the week after physical activity. This is another myth. Stretching does not reduce delayed muscle soreness. Maybe now you’re thinking: so yawning doesn’t work?

Stretching is a great way to gain flexibility and range of motion. If you want to keep your hands on the floor by extending your legs, stretching can help with this. But remember: in weight training, we can improve flexibility and range of motion by doing good range-of-motion exercises at a level similar to stretching. Bodybuilding does not shorten muscles or worsen flexibility, a common sense belief that is unfounded in the literature.

Regarding stretching before or after training, If you feel good doing them, do them. This emotional pleasure response is an important factor for your continued training.

If you don’t like stretching, you now know that stretching doesn’t prevent injuries or reduce post-workout muscle soreness. But a warm-up is still necessary! If you run, you can ask your trainer for some running or mobility training. If you’re training at the gym, it may be a good idea to warm up certain muscles and joints of the day’s workout, and this can be done in the first exercise of the workout. Good work!