Stretching Doesn’t Prevent Injury

In November of 2003 I was diagnosed with illiotibial band friction in my left knee and told the only thing I could do was stretch it and try to build up pain stamina by increasing my short jogging distance every few days. I had previously done light stretching before every exercise. After 3-4 months of physical therapy and stretching, I got fed up with it and quit stretching. Three weeks later the pain was gone.

For the last three years I’ve played club and league ultimate frisbee 2-3 days a week (seasonal), i.e. lots of sprinting, and didn’t stretch beforehand. I do about 5 minutes of jogging, cross-overs, and a bit of cutting instead. I have been injury free for 3 years and never stretch. Am I crazy?

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control doesn’t think so. They published a meta-study in 2004 that found “no benefit positive or negative in stretching to preventing injuries”:

“For Dr. Thacker’s paper The Impact of Stretching on Sports Injury Risk: A Systematic Review of the Literature (PDF) he and his colleagues pored over nearly 100 other published medical studies on the subject. Their key conclusions: stretching does increase flexibility; the highest-quality studies indicate that this increased flexibility doesn’t prevent injuries; few athletes need extreme flexibility to perform their best (perhaps just gymnasts and figure skaters); and more injuries would be prevented by better warmups, by strength training, and by balance exercises, than by stretching.” (BioMechanics Magazine, October 2004)

Pretty much everyone I tell this to thinks I’m crazy. As was pointed out last night by some WAFC-league teammates, science also brings us evolution, global warming, and by association, American freedom haters, so can we really trust it? But I think this is another “idea” that’s gone “scientific.”

Did you know that the recommendation for 8 glasses of water each day has no scientific basis either? Sure you need liquid, but 8 is essentially made-up. (“Drink at least eight glasses of water a day.” Really? Is there scientific evidence for “8
8”?, American Physiological Society, August 2002).

So go ahead and stretch if you’d like to. Maybe it feels good. Maybe there’s a placebo effect. Maybe everyone else is doing it. Maybe stretch after you workout (a totally different motivation). But don’t tell me it prevents injury.