Benefits of Active Stretching

Stretching has many benefits including increased flexibility and range of motion, improved sports performance, injury prevention, preventing muscle soreness, improving posture and stress relief. We explain how and why these benefits of stretching are achieved.

Stretching Primes Your Muscles for Exercise: If the first mile of every run feels like straight-up torture, you need to start warming up with dynamic stretches like leg swings, high knees, and bodyweight squats and lunges. “A dynamic warm-up increases blood flow, moves the joint fluidly, and mimics the movements that will be completed during the workout,” says Jacquelyn Brennan, CSCS, a personal trainer and co-founder of Mind-fuel Wellness, a Chicago-based company that teaches on-site fitness classes and wellness workshops to boost employee health.

Stretching Prevents Injury: Performing dynamic stretching prior to exercise is important for preventing any of those “something snapped!” injuries that can occur when you work out with cold, tight muscles. Being flexible can help to prevent injuries. This can include acute injuries, such as a hamstring strain and overuse injuries such as IT band syndrome or plantar fasciitis. Stretching has been used in the warm-up process for many years. It is thought that having flexible muscles can prevent acute injuries by gently stretching the muscle through its range before exercise. Dynamic (active) stretches are now recommended for warm-ups, over the traditional static stretch.

Improving sporting performance: Many sports obviously require high levels of flexibility, for example athletics and gymnastics. But even athletes in sports such as Rugby, where flexibility is not immediately thought of as a key component, can improve their performance by becoming more flexible. In order to have healthy muscles, they must be flexible. This will help to prevent injuries as already discussed, but it will also allow you to develop strength through the full range of motion at the joint. This gives an advantage over someone who has a limited range.

Stretching Improves Your Exercise Form: Tight muscles don’t do anything good for your exercise form. After all, when your muscles start compensating for each other, proper biomechanics go out the window, Brennan says. By correcting muscular imbalances, static stretching helps you perform any exercise with better form, both improving your performance and preventing injury.
Stretching Boosts Your Joint Health: Stretching is about way more than your muscles, though. It also moves your joints through their full range of motion (remember those pre-run dynamic stretches we mentioned?), increasing the flexibility in your tendons, which connect your muscles to bones, so you’re less likely to suffer from runner’s knee or tennis elbow.

Stretching Strengthens Your Muscles: Stretching can’t replace your strength training routine, but it can help keep you strong. In one Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise study, people who stretched their legs for 40 minutes a few times a week improved their one-rep max (the amount of weight they could lift at one time) by an average of 32 percent for knee extension (straightening) exercises and 15 percent for knee flexion (bending) exercises. They also improved their muscular endurance, vertical jump distance, and standing long-jump distance. Researchers believe static stretching works your muscles similarly to strength exercises, just on a smaller scale.
Stretching Improves Your Flexibility: The saying ‘if you don’t use it, you lose it’ rings true. When we limit our body’s mobility, we become less mobile. That’s because, without stretching, not only do your muscles and connectives become tighter, but your neurological system thinks that they should stay that way or else you’ll hurt yourself. A healthy dose of stretching, though, can make your muscles more flexible plus retrain your brain to let you move in ways you couldn’t before.

Stretching Eases Back Pain: “Believe it or not, back pain may come from tight hamstrings,” says certified clinical exercise physiologist Tara Romeo, CSCS, assistant director of the Professional Athletic Performance Center in New York. That’s because tight hammies increase the stress on the muscles surrounding your spine and in your lower back. One Archives of Internal Medicine study found that following an intensive stretching routine for 12 weeks dramatically improves chronic lower-back pain and reduces the need for pain meds.
Stretching Improves Your Posture: Improving your posture comes down to more than willing yourself to sit up straight. Tight muscles are synonymous with weak muscles, which lead to postural compensations.
Stretching Slashes Stress: Muscle tightness is often associated with stress – we tend to tighten up when stressed. For example, the neck muscles. Stretching relaxes these muscles and you at the same time! Stress reduces blood flow, resulting in muscle tension and knots. Meanwhile, stretching increases blood flow to your muscles to ease tension and help you feel more relaxed, Romero says. Plus, once your blood gets pumping to your muscles, it also reaches your brain, where it can effectively boost your mood.
Stretching Helps You Sleep Better: Whether you sleep for five hours or eight hours, staying in one position for a length of time may cause you to feel stiff. Static stretching before going to bed will help relieve some tightness or cramping you may feel during the night.” Bonus: By reducing stress, you’ll have a better chance of actually falling asleep in the first place.

Stretching Can Help You Score That Promotion: Stretch breaks can turn you into a star employee. That’s because stretching boosts blood flow to your brain, improves energy, and fights nagging anxieties, Brennan says. In one pilot program called Organizations in Motion, employees were encouraged to integrate some form of activity, such as stretching and walking, into their office routines every 30 minutes for several months. At the end of the program, 53 percent said they had increased their levels of at-home physical activity, while 42 percent reported greater engagement and concentration on the job.