The Pain & Therapy Bibliography, Record ID 3474 {show all records}
Effect of Acute Static Stretch on Maximal Muscle Performance: A Systematic Review
most detailed summaries by Paul Ingraham
summary
Are there benefits to pre-exercise muscle stretching? In this huge review of the scientific literature, researchers looked at more than 4500 studies before choosing about 100 to look at more carefully. It’s no surprise in 2011 that they showed a pattern of “overwhelming evidence that stretch durations of 30-45 seconds … imparted no significant effect.” A little more surprising was that they also found some evidence that more thorough stretching reduces muscle strength. I wouldn’t take this too seriously, but it certainly emphasizes the lack of benefit: if anything, it swings the other way. “The detrimental effects of static stretch are mainly limited to longer durations (≥60 s) which may not be typically used during pre-exercise routines in clinical, healthy or athletic populations. Shorter durations of stretch (<60 s) can be performed in a pre-exercise routine without compromising maximal muscle performance.”
this window
new windowabstract
INTRODUCTION: The benefits of pre-exercise muscle stretching have been recently questioned following reports of significant post-stretch reductions in force and power production. However, methodological issues and equivocal findings have prevented a clear consensus being reached. As no detailed systematic review exists, the literature describing responses to acute static muscle stretch was comprehensively examined.
METHODS: Medline, ScienceDirect, SPORTDiscus and Zetoc were searched with recursive reference checking. Selection criteria included randomized or quasi-randomized controlled trials and intervention-based trials published in peer-reviewed scientific journals examining the effect of an acute static stretch intervention on maximal muscular performance.
RESULTS: Searches revealed 4559 possible articles; 106 met the inclusion criteria. Study design was often poor as 30% of studies failed to provide appropriate reliability statistics. Clear evidence exists indicating that short-duration acute static stretch (<30 s) has no detrimental effect (pooled estimate = -1.1%), with overwhelming evidence that stretch durations of 30-45 s also imparted no significant effect (pooled estimate = -1.9%). A sigmoidal dose-response effect was evident between stretch duration and both the likelihood and magnitude of significant decrements, with a significant reduction likely to occur with stretches ≥60 s. This strong evidence for a dose-response effect was independent of performance task, contraction mode or muscle group. Studies have only examined changes in eccentric strength when the stretch durationswere>60 s, with limited evidence for an effect on eccentric strength.
CONCLUSION: The detrimental effects of static stretch are mainly limited to longer durations (≥60 s) which may not be typically used during pre-exercise routines in clinical, healthy or athletic populations. Shorter durations of stretch (<60 s) can be performed in a pre-exercise routine without compromising maximal muscle performance.
related content
One article on SaveYourself.ca cites this paper as a source: