The Advantages of Smart Stretching

YOU KNOW YOU’RE supposed to stretch. But it’s likely the first thing you skip on your training to-do list. And it’s not just your flexibility that suffers.

- CHRIS HATLER

This activity is vital to recovery and decreasing your risk of injury, says Jeff Brannigan, MS, program director at Stretch*d, a stretch therapy studio in New York City, who’s worked with Olympic athletes. “What holds people back from stretching is that it seems like a big-time commitment,” he says. “But really, if you can carve five to 10 minutes out of your daily routine, you can accomplish a lot.”

The key to creating a consistent stretching routine is knowing what type of stretches to do (and when) to maximize the benefits. Plus, it’s helpful to understand why stretching is so beneficial and to learn a few basic moves to add to your schedule. Here, all you need for a solid stretch.

Why should you stretch?

At the base level, stretching can help improve flexibility (achieving a muscle or joint’s end range of motion) and mobility (maintaining control through that range of motion). And when you improve these areas of fitness, you see physical payoffs in better performance and recovery. “If you’re too tight, your body’s not going to be able to move properly, so you’re going to be more prone to injury and pain,” Brannigan says.

A review published in Frontiers in Physiology in 2021 supports the idea that a single, short bout of stretching can improve run performance, based on parameters like time to exhaustion, total running distance, and VO2 max. It also showed that less flexible runners gain the biggest benefits. What’s more, a review published in 2016 indicates an association between stretching and a more than 50 percent risk reduction in acute muscle-related injuries.