Why You Should Stretch and How to Get Started

TL;DR

• Stretching can help prevent injuries and soreness, improve range of motion, warm up muscles before a workout, bring your heart rate down after a workout, and enhance your flexibility
• Static stretching involves holding a stretch for 30 seconds or longer and is often ideal for improving flexibility and as a post-workout cooldown
• Not holding stretches for long enough may be a reason your stretch routine isn’t corresponding to improved flexibility
• Dynamic stretching involves moving rapidly through a stretch movement (i.e. not holding a stretch for any period of time) and is ideal for warming up before a workout
• Foam rolling is a technique where you manipulate muscles to lengthen by working out knots in your muscle tissue
• Yoga is a great way to incorporate static and dynamic stretching into your routine
• It is important to be careful about stretching–you can injure yourself stretching (I have!)

Why Should You Stretch?

If you’ve ever taken a stretch class on the Peloton platform, you know that they always congratulate you for stretching, which can feel like a low bar for getting a “congratulations,” but is a pretty great indication of how few of us take the time to stretch. And that’s a shame because stretching can help prevent injuries and soreness, improve range of motion, warm up muscles before a workout, bring your heart rate down after a workout, and enhance your flexibility. It’s honestly one of the most enjoyable and relaxing self-care activities I do for myself.

Why is it so hard to motivate ourselves to stretch? I think there are a few key reasons at play:

• Working out is already time-consuming, so adding a 5-minute warmup and/or a 5-minute cooldown can feel like too much.
• Stretching doesn’t burn a lot of calories so it doesn’t feel worth our time. It’s hard to value things that don’t have quantifiable benefits or don’t make us feel like we can eat more Cheeto Puffs post-workout.
• Many of us think that if we’re not flexible, stretching isn’t for us.
• A lot of us don’t stretch effectively so we think stretching doesn’t work, when really we might not be doing it correctly.

While all those reasons for avoiding stretching are understandable, they don’t really hold up to scrutiny. For one thing, stretching is especially important for people with tight muscles and if we stretch effectively, we can become more flexible over time. Plus, even though stretching takes time and doesn’t burn a lot of calories, it helps prevent injury and soreness, which is a huge benefit in its own right and enables you to continue working out (and burning more calories if that’s the main goal—those Cheeto Puffs aren’t going to eat themselves!)

The benefits of stretching vary somewhat depending on the kind of stretching you are doing and when you are doing it. Below, I go into each type of stretching, their benefits, and what situations they’re ideal for.

What is Static Stretching and What Is It Best For?

First, there’s static stretching. Static stretching is what we tend to classically think of when we think about stretching. With static stretching, you hold a stretch for ideally 30 seconds or more. Why 30 seconds or more? It takes about 30 seconds for your body to settle into a stretch and actually let the muscle release and lengthen.

If you want to be really technical about it, when you stretch a muscle, there are these things called muscle spindles that send messages to your brain telling it to contract that muscle you’re trying to stretch. Your muscle spindle is kind of like an overprotective parent that doesn’t want you pushing yourself too hard in case you get hurt. It’s worried that if you stretch a muscle, you’ll overdo it and tear something, hence why it freaks out and starts shouting at the brain to “CONTRACT, GODDAMN IT!”

After 30 seconds in a stretch, the muscle spindle gets inhibited, your brain chills out about trying to contract that muscle, and the muscle is allowed to relax. If you’ve ever wondered why your stretching routine isn’t leading to improved flexibility, it may be because you’re not holding stretches long enough for your muscles to actually stop freaking out and lengthen.

Static stretching is associated with all sorts of benefits like improved range of motion and muscle extensibility (basically just a fancy word for flexibility), reduced muscle stiffness, and greater tolerance of stretching (your brain learns to freak out less about stretching).

Examples of Static Stretches

There are so many great static stretches that it’s impossible to list them all, my go-to’s for running and climbing are:

• Quad stretches
• Hip flexor stretches
• Side lunges (this video shows a dynamic stretch, but just hold it to make it static)
• Calf stretches
• Foot stretches
• Hamstring stretches
• Bicep stretches
• Tricep stretches

I also love this list of stretches from Wellness Warrior, which includes a stretch routine with a warmup.

Static stretching is ideal for cooling down after a workout and is most effective when you do it a few times a week. After a workout, your muscles are already warm so they can relax better into a stretch, and static stretching can help calm your heart rate.

Plus, there are some studies that suggest that static stretching before a workout can hurt your performance. One possible explanation: lengthened muscles might have trouble contracting during the workout. Not all studies find that static stretching hurts performance though and some studies find that if you do static stretching before a dynamic stretch routine (described below) you won’t have any ill effects. It’s confusing to sort through that all though, so I personally choose to play it safe and do static stretching after a workout, but do what feels right for you and consult with a professional.

What is Dynamic Stretching and What Is It Best For?

The second type of stretching is dynamic stretching. With dynamic stretching, you are often doing the same stretches as static stretching, you just aren’t holding them for any length of time. For example, with a dynamic quad stretch, you would grab your ankle, stretch your quad for a second, grab your other ankle, stretch your quad for a second, and move back and forth a few times.

With dynamic stretching, the goal is to move your muscles through a full range of motion and get them warmed up for a workout. If you’ve ever gone for a run without warming up and felt like your legs were two bags of cement as soon as you hit the pavement, then you probably have a sense of why it’s helpful to warm muscles up before working out.

Dynamic stretching is associated with improved performance during a workout, greater range of motion, and may prevent injury if the stretching is tailored to the particular sport you are doing (i.e. the dynamic stretches mimic the movements you’ll be doing in your sport of choice).

Examples of Dynamic Stretches

If you played sports as a kid, you can probably think of examples of dynamic stretches from your pre-game warmups. Some classic dynamic stretches that I regularly incorporate before a run are:

• Quad stretches
• Hamstring scoop (also the lunges with rotation, 90-90, and glute bridge at that link)
• The world’s greatest stretch
• Plank to downward dog (I don’t usually do this three-legged like the video, that’s definitely harder, so if you’re into it, go for it!)
• Side lunge

Doing yoga regularly is another great way to incorporate stretching into your routine. Most yoga flows primarily involve dynamic stretching, though poses may be held for longer, particularly in slow (or yin) flows. I love incorporating slow beginner or intermediate flows from the Peloton platform into my after-workout cooldown because the routines usually give me a nice mix of static and dynamic stretching and are much more relaxing and engaging than a basic stretch routine. Yoga with Adriene’s YouTube videos are also awesome, free yoga routines.

What is Foam Rolling and What Is It Best For?

Last, you can use tools like foam rollers to manipulate muscles and help them stretch and lengthen. As the name suggests, foam rolling involves rolling a foam cylinder over your body (often using your body weight for pressure). Foam rolling lengthens muscles by smoothing out knots, which are formed when the tissues that surround and separate muscles get bundled up. Foam rolling coaxes those muscle fibers into a more normal (i.e. straighter) position. It may also help facilitate blood flow to the area, which can improve injuries or inflammation in the area.

There are a lot of great online videos on how to foam roll (see this nice resource from REI, for example). The National Academy of Sports Medicine (NASM) recommends that when you find a tender spot, you hold pressure on that spot for 30 seconds or more until you feel the muscle relax. Foam rolling can be done before or after a workout and some studies have found that it’s especially effective when used in combination with static or dynamic stretching.

Foam rolling can be risky for people with certain medical conditions like osteoporosis or osteopenia. So as always, consult a medical professional and/or personal trainer before starting a new workout routine.

Summary

One last caveat: It’s important that you are careful about stretching and don’t push yourself to the point where a stretch is painful. Let your muscles ease into a stretch rather than pushing (or rage stretching as I’ve heard one Peloton instructor call it). I’ve seriously strained a wrist muscle during a “healthy wrist” yoga routine (super ironic, I know) that bothered me for multiple years before I got physical therapy (the lesson from that is also to not wait years to get physical therapy).

The most important things in life usually make you feel good, help you out in the long-term, and do not have quantifiable benefits. Stretching is one of those things. If you want more information on developing a workout routine, check out my post on creating a workout routine you’ll love.

Do you have any favorite stretches? I’d love to hear about them! Feel free to ping me or leave a comment. And if you found this helpful, I’d love for you to consider liking, subscribing (in the left sidebar), or sharing it with others.