USATF study honcho says masters can still benefit from stretching
A few days ago, USATF published the results of its long-awaited stretching survey. Here’s the summary. And here are the protocols. “To stretch or not to stretch? That’s a question millions of runners ask themselves daily,” the report begins. “But results from a USA Track & Field-sponsored clinical trial involving close to 3,000 runners confirm there is no difference in the risk of injury for those who stretched before running and those who did not.” Yet when I wrote study manager Alan Roth, he left the door open to stretching, especially masters runners who think it prevents injury (my contention all along). Dr. Roth told me: “In general, if you are already doing pre-run stretching, don’t stop whatever your age. I have a personal opinion which is that runners often do stretching of muscles related to chronic muscle or tendon problems. The people who told us they normally stretch before they run apparently were doing so for protection against injury as they had a higher risk of injury when they stopped their stretching for the study.”
Here’s the rest of the USATF press release:
The study randomly assigned people to perform a specified pre-run stretching routine or to perform no pre-run stretching for a period of 3 months. Those people who completed the study and complied with their group had the same risk of injury (16%) regardless of which group they were in. Overall, stretching did not provide protection against injury.
The study manager, Alan Roth, Ph.D., said, “For the study’s specified pre-run stretching routine that millions of runners commonly use, the study puts to rest claims for and against it, but the devil is in the details. Using scientific method, we have arrived at some overall conclusions and learned some important details. If you’ve been doing pre-run stretching, it is best to keep doing it. A surprise finding was that many variables that we thought would strongly influence injury rates, didn’t. For example, injury rates among women and men were similar while mileage, flexibility or level of competition also did not appear relevant. In general, younger runners fared no better than the older runners.”
The study’s Principal Investigator, Dr. Daniel Pereles, a Maryland-based orthopedist, said that participants provided information on many relevant variables when they enrolled in the study, permitting a thorough analysis of potential risk factors for injury. Participants provided information on such things as age, gender, usual stretching regimen, miles run per week, years running, warm-up activities, measurements of flexibility, concurrent diseases and medications, level of competition and so on.
Two of the variables recorded were found to strongly influence injury rates; people with a higher body-mass-index were more likely to be injured as were people with a recent or chronic injury prior to participating in the study. Participation was limited to runners who had no injuries for the six weeks prior to the study.
One additional risk factor was identified for people who informed us they normally stretch before they run. If they were assigned to stretch, they had a low risk of injury but if they were assigned not to stretch, the injury risk was double those who kept stretching. It’s this result that most startlingly exhibits why people consider stretching to prevent injury. This study shows that those who are comfortable with their pre-run stretching routine should maintain it. They risk injury if they discontinue their pre-run stretching. For runners comfortable without pre-run stretching, they don’t necessarily improve their injury protection by starting a pre-run stretching routine.
Darby Thompson, the study statistician, commented, “With the number of runners who contributed to this study, we have shown that the difference in injury rates between those performing pre-run stretching and those who did not is negligible. Although we identified other very important risk factors (weight, prior injury, stopping a stretching routine), because this study was specifically investigating the effect of pre-run stretching, other risk factors may influence injury rates but were not identified. More studies like this one should be conducted to confirm or refute the importance of other risk factors.”
For more information on the stretch study, please contact Alan Roth at alan@alanroth.net or 301-928-6314.
For more details or to read the clinical findings, visit – http://www.usatf.org/stretchStudy/index.asp.
Having seen no reference to masters, I wrote study manager Alan Roth. He graciously replied yesterday, answering my quickie questions:
Masterstrack.com: How many of your test subjects were over 35? Over 50? Over 70?
Alan Roth: 35? 60.9% Over 50? 17.5% Over 70? 0.6%
Did you break down results by age groups?
We found no significant difference across the age groups and also comparing the age groups to each other, even when adjusting for other variables such as gender, weight, etc.
What was your oldest test subject?
79 years old. He was assigned to the no-stretch group and did not experience an injury.
Do your findings apply to all age groups — even into the 60s and 70s?
There was a statistical problem with the older and youngest groups. The numbers of people in them were so small that it was difficult to impossible to have statistically valid results. So, for example, we didn’t see any effect of stretching in the 60+ group with the numbers that we had, but we can’t be confident that the results would stay the same with larger numbers.
Is there any age at which pre-run stretching is recommended?
In general, if you are already doing pre-run stretching, don’t stop whatever your age. I have a personal opinion which is that runners often do stretching of muscles related to chronic muscle or tendon problems. The people who told us they normally stretch before they run apparently were doing so for protection against injury as they had a higher risk of injury when they stopped their stretching for the study. We didn’t ask them to specify what stretches they did. Perhaps they regularly only stretch their hamstrings or quads where they had chronic problems. We looked at stretching in general and not for a specific problem. The stretch study doesn’t tell us this but I believe that pre-run stretching is beneficial if it is done to deal with a specific problem.
Did older runners who didn’t stretch have an appreciable increase in injuries?
We didn’t have any differences among age groups.
Would these results possibly apply to non-running events in track and field — the throws and jumps?
I don’t think the results could apply to those events as they are explosive, strength events, not endurance events. We had a category for sprinters but we only had a small number of them so little could be learned from that.
17 Responses
Yeah, sure, I am 66 and I am going to go run hurdles without stretching. Who are they kidding? Maybe we should ask what events the testers compete.
This is one test I would completely disregard.
I agree with Courtland.
Stretching was big when I was “younger” in the 1970s and I believe it is still very important today.
Every doctor and Physical Therapist that I have worked with the past several years (of multiple injuries) have ALL requested that I stretch
and ICE. This includes the doctor / surgeon that performed the surgery on my torn lateral men.
(By the way the same doctor / surgeon had just gone through the same surgery – so he was able to discuss the stretching techniques that he was using).
I have recently shared some of the stretching exercises to non-athletes at work . . and they have all returned to me saying that they have helped them.
I believe that the key thing to do before any exercising is to get your muscles ready, warm, and loose. Dynamic stretching before exercising does the trick for me — squats, lunges, jumping jacks, high steps, etc. I then do a very slow jog. Some people like to do the slow jog first, but I tend to want to go too fast on the jog, so I do the dynamic stuff first to avoid pushing cold muscles too fast. I use static stretches as part of the cool down process to increase flexiblity for future workouts.
I’m sure stretching before hurdles improves one’s performance in the event, but this and many other studies conclude that it has no effect on injury prevention. With respect to some of the field events however, studies have shown a negative impact on explosive power following stretching.
Athletic training regimens are a little like religion though. No amount of science will change some people’s minds.
you must stretch be for you run ,if not your looking for a pulled or strain muscle.dimos work for me to
Study participants ran at least 10 miles per week, so the study was designed for road runners, not sprinters, although apparently they had a small number of sprinters, presumably too small for statistical significance. Consequently one should not assume this applies to sprinters or hurdlers.
The results do not surprise me. I did not believe that stretching before going out for a jog prevented injuries. In fact, I prefer to warm up first by jogging, then stretch before doing strenuous track workouts. But what do I know; the injury I sustained earlier this year happened after just such a routine.
I agree with John and the data. Stretching does not prevent injury. What it does do though, is maintain flexibilty, hence range of motion, hence stride length, hence speed. Ergo, if you want to maintain your speed through your Masters career, keep stretching!
You must warm up before you run. Stretching is not warming up.
WARM-UP IN THE 50TH (IN GERMANY), .
WHEN I WAS STILL A SO CALLED “OPEN ATHLETE” WAS IN GENERAL THE SAME:
2 LAPS JOGGING, THEN STRETCHING – MAINLY BOUNCING EXERCISES, VERY LITTLE STATIC. THEN LEG-SPEEDS, AND STRIDERS, ETC.
IN THE USA, I EARNED ABOUT THE LONG-SLOW STRETCHING,
IT WAS TAUGHT IN THE BEGINNING COACHES CLINICS,
IT TOOK SOME GETTING USED TO, BUT IT WORKED, WHILE MY FRIENDS IN EUROPE STILL DID A LOT OF BOUNCING.
WE ALL HAD – NO MATTER WHAT WARM-UP, INJURIES.
AS A TRACK COACH, WE HAD THE ATHLETES ALL JOG FIRST, THEN STRETCHING OR ANY ROUTINE. SPRINTERS, JUMPERS, THROWERS, YES, EVEN THE LATTER.
I DON’T SEE TOO MANY THROWERS, AT LEAST IN MY AGE GROUP WARMING UP AT ALL… JUST THROWING. AND YET,
I ALWAYS HAVE MY SHARE OF INJURIES, NEVER COMPETING WITHOUT A WARM-UP, SAME OLD ROUTINE.
GO FIGURE.
AS MENTIONED, STRETCHING DOES NOT PREVENT INJURY,
BUT A FLEXIBLE BODY IS SURELY AND ADVANTAGE.
HAVING MY RIGHT ARM IN A SLING FOR ANOTHER 3 WEEKS,
YUK… DOING SOME STATIONARY BIKE (LIKE RIDING IT OUT OF THE GYM).. AND ADDING A BIT OF LEG STRETCHING FEELS LIKE STILL BEING WITH IT.
PATIENCE!!!
I agree…this study is almost worthless for sprinters. There isn’t any mention of PNF stretching either (Michael Johnson’s favorite stretching method). As for me, I can get away with not stretching for a 5k but if I’m getting in the blocks, I have to stretch. Previous torn hammys tell me so (6 in my left and 3 in my right). The past few years I’ve religiously stretched before sprint workouts and races and haven’t had any strains. Tendinitis yes, pulls, no. I highly recommend PNF stretching…Google it if you don’t know what it is…if you’re too lazy, here’s a sample: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=791XXiYzNbE
After being a high jumper for 50 years, I believe that stretching is overrated. I think a LIGHT stretching for 5 minutes is good, but doing more than that is detrimental. I had several injuries in my carrier, most of them happened in the middle of the competition/workout. I really cannot blame them on a lack of stretching. However, a complete change of routine before the competition can lead to injuries. If you are going to change your warmup, do it gradually.
In my previous post I was talking about stretching before the competition. During normal workouts I stretch more, mostly because I am lazy and stretching is essentially no effort for me. You can very quickly do enough stretching to reach the limits of the flexibility given by the limits of your current muscles and tendons. If you want to reach significantly more flexibility than what you currently have (and basically rebuild your body), it can be done, but it might take 5 years or more.
Good to see you back on the board, Professor Jamrich. I hope you will return to national competition in the high jump in either March or July of 2011.
One can easily imagine strengthening one’s muscles, but does anyone know what can be done, if anything, to increase the STRENGTH of one’s tendons or ligaments?
In response to Pete’ s question, ligaments and to a lesser degree tendons can not effectively be strengthened, that is one theory for the increase in tendon rupture rates for people who use anabolic steroids, while you can increase the muscle strength and the force that is generated by the muscles the limiting factor ends up being the ligament and tendon. The tendons are especially vulnerable because they have a very poor blood supply and cannot easily heal with chronic or acute injury. There is some literature to suggest that eccentric strenghtening, which is another way of describing negatives in weight lifting can increase the strength of the tendon at the area where it joins the bone and or muscle and can be helpful in injury prevention, but have to be done caefuuly and in a controled manner as to not result in an injury in the areas one is trying to strenghten.
In response to this thread one must not confuse warm up with stretching. A properly done warm up will encompass dynamic stretching movements there by warming up the muscles. stretching statically is potentially dangerous as this type of stretch if done with force causes micro-tears in the muscle-tendon junction and can increase the rate of injury. It is well documented in the literature that static over stretching before power events, weightlifting, throwing, sprinting actually leads to the development of less power in muscular testing.
Over the years I have modified my warm-up and have found what works for me, I and many others do not do any slow jogging, we do progressive runs to warm up muscles, followed by dynamic stretching and drills. At that point I feel ready to do some faster sprints and will proceed into my workout.
I agree fully with the very insightful post by Allan. I would add that as we get older we tend to eliminate high impact excercises in our workout routine. Sometimes we have to – because of injuries, but if you can do them, do them. They keep your bones and tendons strong, if you do the “bouncy excercises” in moderation.
As far as Pete’s question about my return to competition is concerned, I probably will return this winter. We went through a terribly difficult time with our 17 years old autistic son which ended with his tragic death few weeks ago. I am doing some high jumping now, but mostly weightlifting – which I am using as a natural antidepressant. If you find yourselves in a difficult situation, weight lifting is for some better than Prozac. Anyway, I digress…
Thank you, Milan. Very, very sorry to hear about this tragic event. Looking forward to your return in early 2011.
PLT
The study doesn’t prove anything one way or the other about “stretching”, but only shows that the rather attenuated static stretching routine devised and tested by the investigators is not effective.
They also showed that when you stop runners using their own “stretching” routines they tend to get injured. This suggests that whatever “stretching” these runners do is actually effective and merits further investigation. The researchers sail right past this conclusion, preferring to state:
“Although, all subjects switching routines were more likely to experience an injury than those who did not switch, the group that stopped stretching had by far the higher number of reported injuries, implying that an immediate shift in a regimen may be more
important than the regimen itself.”
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