This is the absolute best article we’ve EVER read on stretching. First and foremost it continually maintains both context and perspective, acknowledging both the satellite view and the zoom lens, the subjective bias of the author and the objective science as it appears to currently stand…

Quite a Stretch

by Paul Ingraham

Stretching just doesn’t have the effects that most runners hope it does. In particular, plentiful recent stretching research has shown that stretching doesn’t (1) warm you up, (2) prevent soreness or injury, or (3) enhance peformance. No other measurable and significant benefit to stretching has ever been proven. Even if it worked, stretching would be inefficient, “proper” technique is controversial at best, and many key muscles are actually biomechanically impossible to stretch — like most of the quadriceps group (which runners never believe without diagrams). If there’s any hope for stretching, it might be a therapeutic effect on muscle “knots” (myofascial trigger points), but even that theory is full of problems…

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