5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Do Static Stretches
Jun 24th, 2008 by Mehdi Posted in Flexibility
Image credit: alex_joffe
Static stretching involves no movement: you hold a stretch for time. Dynamic stretches improve your flexibility by moving around. Other types of stretching include ballistic stretching, PNF stretching, isometric stretching, …
A lot of people warm-up using static stretches. I’ve been advocating dynamic stretches for some time, blogging about hip, ankle and thoracic mobility. Here are 5 reasons why you shouldn’t do static stretches.
1. Static Stretches Impair Performance. Stay away from static stretches right before explosive movements like weight lifting, sprinting, jumping, etc. PubMed has plenty of research why, 2 examples:
- Decrease Vertical Jump Height. 10mins of static stretching decreases your vertical jump height for up to 15mins after the stretch.
- Increase Sprint Time. Static stretching inhibits the stretch reflex: the ability to store kinetic energy in your muscles during the eccentric.
Squatting down correctly stores energy in your hamstrings by stretching them. You can Squat more weight if you use this energy on the way up. But static stretches inhibit the stretch reflex, thereby lowering your Squat.
2. Static Stretches Don’t Lower Risks of Injury. They increase the range of motion you can attain, but not your ability to stabilize in these new positions. Excessive flexibility without strength increases risks of injury.
First thing you’ll tend to do if you get injured is stretching your injured limb. This can aggravate the problem rather than fix it. Example: excessive stretching of your hip flexors can irritate your joint capsule.
3. Static Stretches Don’t Reduce Soreness. Some people stretch post exercise to reduce delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). If lifting caused DOMS, you’ll be sore the next day, whatever stretching you do.
The best way to get rid of soreness is to train your muscles again. This speeds up recovery by flushing blood (nutrients) into your muscles. Do light lifting or dynamic stretches if you’re sore. Contrast showers can also help.
4. Static Stretches Don’t Warm-up Your Muscles. Warm muscles are harder to injure than cold ones. Static stretches don’t raise your body temperature. You’ll have to add 10 mins stationary cycle or light jogging.
This method, however, doesn’t let you practice movements. So you lost 20 mins doing something that isn’t optimal while 10 mins dynamic stretching would have increased flexibility, raised body temperature and grooved motor patterns.
5. Static Stretches Don’t Put You in the Right State. To get best results from static stretches you must relax your whole body, release tension. That’s why static stretches, including yoga, are great to de-stress.
But they aren’t great to prepare yourself for heavy Deadlifts, sprinting, MMA or any other sports where you need to be fast, explosive and aggressive. You want to be fired up, not relaxed.
No More Static Stretches? The only thing static stretches are good for is fixing your posture. After a day sitting, the static hip flexor stretch is a great way to realign your pelvis while activating your glutes.
Most static stretches have a dynamic variation. Warm-up with soft tissue work, then 2-3 static stretches followed by 8-10 dynamic stretches. That’s what I do as warm-up. Let me know how you warm-up in the comments.
How about AFTER workout ?
@Wazzup
No problem post workout, but I’d still favor dynamic stretches.
I warm up doing this:
Leg Swings x 10
Side Leg Swings x 10
Split Squats x 10
Lateral Squats x 10
Rotational Squats x 10
Crossover Reverse Lunge x 10
Leg Swings 2 x 10
Shoulder Dislocations 1, 2 or 3 x 10(I don’t do them always)
Then I do empty bar squats, if my shoulder is okay some front and overhead squats with it. If I am squatting at high weight(80+, for me that’s high) I might do some squats with 50 kg before I start doing those.
I do yoga 3 times a week. I feel like I am REALLY limbered up after that. Yoga falls into dynamic, right?
@BraiNEateR
Some of yoga is dynamic (moving from one position to another), some is static. But it isn’t like the exercises b_beer listed.
Actually yoga is a form of static stretching. Basically static stretching is pretty much a bad way to stretch for any warm up activities. Static stretching is most beneficial when you have a solid strength foundation. I think the best way to static stretch is right before you go to sleep. Static stretch relaxes you and helps the transition to sleep becomes much more quicker.
I’m disturbed by this article. It’s highly misleading. You’ve essentially said static stretching is useless.
Now yes, it shouldn’t be used prior to a workout. Dynamic stretching in its self causes microtears in the muscle and will weaken your muscle before performing your activity. I do agree with that.
However, flexibility is important. You mentioned MMA, a sport where flexibility plays a tremendous role to avoid submissions, apply guards, and in the stand-up game. You’ve disregarded the entire purpose of static stretching.
Of course people use it improperly. People think it’s a warm-up, they stretch way too often, etc. etc. But static stretching does have its place and shouldn’t be completely disregarded because you’re only viewing the improper uses of it.
Now, as far as dynamic stretching - yes, it is the best choice when doing it near a work-out. All of my clients stretch dynamically before we begin our sessions. However, while dynamic may be great, there’s always room for static work - just at different times, away from your work-out.
Still doing the Beginner 5×5
On my off days I will do some yoga poses that work on my hip and ankle flexibility. That’s after I practice some kettlebell or Olympic lifts usually. Whenever I think of it or have the opportunity throughout the day, I do the “Asian Squat”. Just to improve my squat depth. I will stay in that position for as long as I’m comfortable. I think developing that habit has really improved my squat. It also gives me more opportunity to develop muscle control without a load. I can concentrate on isolating and flexing various muscles out of the squat.
For warmup, I do 12,10,8,6,1 reps for the first of each muscle group exercise with the single rep ending up about 80% of my 5 rm. Just to acclimate my muscles and joints to the weight.
“Excessive flexibility without strength increases risks of injury.” Very well said. This is why it is ok for gymnasts to have the flexibility they have because they work on active flexibility and being strong throughout the whole range of motion. Doing a V-sit requires your hips, abs, and lower back to be flexible, but at the same time you have to be strong enough to get yourself into and hold that position.
In normal static stretching this element of strength is lost. This is why I’d recommend some simple gymnastics progressions that improve “active flexibility” if you wish to become more flexible without sacrificing strength and increasing risk of injury.
I swim anywhere from 150 - 500 meters, depending on what I’m planning to do later in the gym. (If it’s a heavy lift day, I swim for a shorter period to conserve energy.) The cool water does a great job of waking me up in the morning, and there is great blood flow to the muscles of the body. Highly recommend it to others.
Agree 100%. I remember when I did Yoga alone for 5 months, my joints had this unstable feeling, plus I lost a lot of useful strenght. A LOT of useful strength, like I had trouble carrying the groceries bags…
For warmups, I usually do the official Crossfit warmup (calisthenics and static psoas stretch).
What’s an “asian squat?” Improving my squat depth sounds good, but I have no idea how to do it. Also, I am having pain in my right hip area when I’m sitting in a chair and I raise my right foot and place it on top of my left knee. Any ideas/suggestions?
I do most of the Magnificent Mobility warm-up each and every day because I have the time, although I have ditched the movements that involve rotation at the lower back.
I’d also like to recommend the Z-Health joint release program. I want to say I first heard about it in a Dan John article, so I picked it up. I do that every day for about 5-10 minutes in the morning and it’s been tremendous. I used to go to the chiropractor about once a month for minor neck and back issues, but since I started Z Health I have found that those issues have essentially disappeared, and now I only go once every 2-3 months for a check up. It’s made it so much easier for me to progress since I don’t get the little nagging injuries like I used to.
I still do some static stretching every day a few hours after my workouts because it helps me relax, but I don’t do anything for the hamstrings or low back.
I observed this yestarday..
“excessive stretching of your hip flexors can irritate your joint capsule”
I did HIP mobility, Glutes acitvation and some listed under lordosis article. Then had my post workout meal then went staright to the gym. I observed some kind of pain Joint Capsule during Squat.
May be stretching too much!
Dieter, What sort of yoga where you doing to end up having trouble carrying grocery bags?
I’ve been doing iyengar yoga for a while and they always emphasise building strength to support your new flexibility.
Hey
I have to walk to my gym for about ten minutes…. could that be considered warming up? How about jogging there? I don’t want to use too much energy… also what do you think about eating a few hours before work out to have sugar in blood stream… i am not diabetic..
I do some rowing on a concept rower before a work-out and on lifting days I do around 30 minutes a few hours later, at a moderate pace, to work the muscles. Given it does a whole body work-out plus cardio I find it very useful.
Mehndi,
Would taking a yoga class one day a week, on a day in which I am not strength training, have any kind of negative effect on my strength?
Hi Thomas, I was also doing Iyengar Yoga.. the thing is I forgot to mention I also did some very mild swimming to stay slim that contributed to loosen my muscles and joints. Btw: I was 19 then and grew 2 cm. in that period, I´m telling this because I am very sure that all the Yoga added up to incresing my height.
Chris I am very curious about that Z-health stuff.. could you please give me an idea what´s it about? I´ve been reading about it for some time…
“Static stretches don’t lower your risk of injury.”
according to Roger Harrell, a CrossFit Coach, “Making significant increases in flexibility will bring marked improvement in performance. Larger ranges of motion (ROM) will allow for longer periods of applied force, improvement in technique, increases in biomechanical advantages, and reduction in joint strain.”
Hypothetically, I would rather plop into a maximal ROM squat and build strength from there instead of being stiff but strong. This statement is not meant to be at odds with strength training and its benefits.
I have to respectfully disagree on this one. Somehow gymnasts and martial artists have managed pretty decent power production even with tons of static stretches. I don’t remember if Alwyn ever addressed this in his “Bringing the Pendulum Back to Center” articles - I’m pretty sure he did in Part 2. Dynamic stretches aren’t always the best way to hit hypertonic muscles.
I always do the same workout routing as then one we do at aikido practice. Ancient Indian, Chinese and Japanese stuff. It contains both static and dynamic stretching but mainly focused on relaxing your body into ready-for-action-status.
Hey, just wanted to say I’ve been doing the dynamic stretching for about 10 days now. It definitely helps me with running, I do it as a warm up and I feel much looser and comfortable at the start of the run.