Apparently stretching doesn’t help prevent injury (click to read CNN)
--So apparently our coaches lied to us all along. Well maybe not knowingly, but still. And I always had an inkling that stretching never really did anything. In fact, at the latest parts of my soccer career I didn’t stretch before games (much to the chigrin of the trainers)...but which were some of my best mind you. And I know guys who would stretch out and warm up like crazy and then go on to pull a muscle. Anyways, just goes to show that many times our preconceived notions of fact are really no facts at all, despite our best efforts to believe they are. Test all things folks...hold onto the good.
Also, I don’t think they’re refuting “warming up” per se. All machines benefit from warming up before action be it cars, computers, or human beings, so getting the blood flowing and breaking a sweat has benefit. And by all means stretch, but I think these studies come to the conclusion that that necessarily doesn’t prevent injury any more than not stretching does.
-ebb