Despite what you may have heard, stretching before exercising won’t make you more flexible, and stretching afterward won’t make your muscles hurt less, experts have revealed.
According to Professor Kieran O’Sullivan, who studies musculoskeletal pain at the University of Limerick, the 10 minutes you could spend flexing those hamstrings is effectively useless and could even cause damage.
For the average person doing moderate amounts of exercise, “the value of stretching relative to other workouts is much less,” according to Professor O’Sullivan.
This is because research has shown that stretching has little impact on muscle fibers beyond exercise alone. Even walking may be enough to reduce the risk of strain and injury.
Khloe Kardashian shared photos of herself doing various static stretches during a trip to St. Barts in 2015.
Khloe Kardashian has become known for her fitness journey and even hosted a reality show about the process, called ‘Revenge Body.’
Stretching works by temporarily reducing the amount of blood and oxygen flowing to the muscles, said Professor Judy Delp, professor of biomedical sciences at Florida State University College of Medicine. TIME.
This deficiency is said to motivate the body’s cells to deliver excess blood and nutrients to the muscle fibers, making them better able to cope with the impact of movement.
But the evidence for those benefits is somewhat limited, Professor Nicolas Babault, an exercise physiologist at the University of Burgundy, told TIME.
Additionally, stretching after exercise does not appear to improve muscle soreness in the coming days, according to a 2011 review of 12 studies on the topic by UK researchers. Cochrane non-profit.
This is in direct contrast to what fitness influencers and celebrities, like Khloe Kardashian, share about their routines.
Some experts say moves that involve dynamic stretches, such as squats and walking lunges, are helpful, but traditional types should be discarded.
The Kardashians’ trainer, Joel Bouraima, recently revealed that Khloe’s workout routine always starts with at least thirty minutes of stretching to “warm up.”
Bending to touch your toes before or after a workout may make you feel like you’re getting more flexible, but what you really feel is your body relaxing, said Professor Kieran O’Sullivan.
These positions are called static stretches and involve holding postures for long periods while breathing, said Leigh-Ann Bramble, a physical therapist at Bramble at the Hospital for Special Surgery. Sports Performance and Rehabilitation Center, said.
But some studies have shown that holding these postures for long periods of time can make it harder to gain speed and can actually be painful.
‘Using static stretching in a warm-up before an athletic competition can actually negatively affect your performance. This is because static stretching can limit the body’s ability to react quickly,” he said.
Some trainers say that if any movement is going to make a difference in muscle soreness, it’s dynamic stretching. These stretches are repetitive movements that combine to activate muscles, joints, and ligaments.
This includes things like torso twists, walking lunges, squats, and leg swings. These movements cause blood to flow to the muscles, increasing temperature and decreasing stiffness.
To become more flexible you have to lengthen your muscles, which involves dynamic stretching, Polly de Mille, exercise physiologist at Special Surgery Hospitalsaying.
Lengthening only occurs when you do it consistently for months and years, in routines like dancers or gymnasts. You can also incorporate things like foam rolling into your routine to help you move forward, de Mille said.
But if you’re just trying to make sure you stay within a healthy range of mobility, then walking a little each day should be enough, Professor Delp said.
“If you walk regularly and get your joints through that range of motion, you’re [stretching] without realizing it,” Delp said.
This is more than enough for most people, said Professor Timothy Caulfield, professor of health law and science policy at the University of Alberta. Professor Caufield shared in a comment on X that although it hasn’t stretched in 15 years, it is doing well.
‘”…stretching before or after training has little effect on muscle soreness over the next few days…” Agreed. I haven’t stretched in 15 years! #Move,” Caufield wrote.