Friday, October 15, 2010

For Runners, Static Stretching May Be Outdated

NPR reports For Runners, Static Stretching May Be Outdated.

"At the end of three months, Pereles found that 16 percent of all the runners had sustained an injury. But it turns out the stretchers fared no better than the non-stretchers.

'I was surprised actually that the stretching didn't prevent injury,' says Pereles. 'But that's just the way it was. There was absolutely no benefit.'

At the same time, the researchers in Pereles' study spotted an interesting trend among runners who'd been in the habit of stretching before the study began: Those who were put in the 'no-stretch' group sustained more injuries during the three-month experiment."

It goes on to discuss dynamic stretching.

1 comment:

Roman Kishchenko said...

I have been running into similar claims for some time now. At the same time many top athletes/trainers claim that stretching is essential. Not sure yoga can be equated to stretching but I have heard Ryan Giggs is cites it (as well as stretching) as one of the things helping him to still be on top.