Although it was a staple of P.E. lessons and sports for years, static stretching was put on the back-burner a few years back as the education from governing bodies and exams slowly changed to reflect more modern research and scientific findings, allowing the practices of coaches to adapt. It was a slow filtering, and as with many things, the findings aren’t as black and white as they might appear.
Why not stretch before a race?
Static stretching has been found in numerous studies to have a negligible impact on injury prevention, whilst also decreasing the power output of muscles, meaning they produce less force. This translates to less distance on every stride, a lower cadence and slower running. Not exactly ideal in training or racing!
Stretching has an effect on both the muscular system, and the nervous system. It slightly lengthens muscles, but the major mechanism at play is the involvement of the brain, which blocks signals to some motor nerves in order to relax the muscle and let it lengthen.
The main issue with the research it turns out, is that most studies have people stretch immediately before performing exercise. This isn’t how most runners or sports people would use static stretching before activity though. There would further low intensity movement prior to that start of the sport/activity.
Regardless of the slightly murky science, it’s almost a natural instinct to stretch before a big effort, but how should we go about it?
Dynamic stretching
This option is a great way to increase the range of motion (flexibility) of an area in preparation for vigorous exercise such as running, particularly hard running like a race. One muscle or muscle group is lengthened, whilst the opposite muscle group is active and preparing to work. Ideal.
Build into the movements slowly, and do some raising of your pulse and body temperature before you go diving into leg swings and torso twists, but dynamic stretching is a great way to go about it.
What about the troublesome areas that most runners have? What about people coming back from injury? Not doing some focused work on certain area can leave you feeling vulnerable, if only mentally.
How to include static stretching
The good news is that we don’t have to completely avoid static stretching, in some circumstances, it can be a very useful tool. The bad news, if you can really call it that, is that we just need to change how and when we use it within race preparation.
Static stretching essentially falls into the M (mobilise) section of the recommended RAMP warm-up model. Before stretching, we Raise our pulse and body temperature through low intensity exercise, in our instance, some easy running for around 5 minutes, possibly with a small increase in pace as it goes on.
We then Activate with movements like squats or lunges, followed by Mobility which can include the dynamic and/or static stretching.
If we include dynamic stretches, we move straight on to the Potentiate phase, moving with more speed or force such as doing some 100m run lengths with increasing speed up to race pace.
If we choose static stretching, what we then do instead, is return back to the start of the RAMP acronym, and begin Raising our pulse and body temperature again as these will have dropped whilst stretching. As we return to Mobilise for the second time, we choose dynamic stretches and then move to Potentiate to finish.
Warm up logistics
If you choose to stretch statically as well as dynamically, just be sure to give yourself plenty of time. You don’t want to be lacking the chance to re-warm and prepare having spent too long stretching. It’s worth planning a warm-up routine with timings so you can fit in everything you need to do before the race starts.
Static stretching can be part of your pre-race warm-up routine as long as you’re willing to put in the time to ensure you’re prepared for the race to start. Keep stretches short in time, around 10-15 seconds per muscle group, and aim for a stretch that is noticeable but not strong.
Written by Kyle Brooks, Running Coach, based in Norwich, Norfolk