Stretching before your run? You may be wasting your time

You’ve been pulling your quads, extending your calves and Achilles tendons, bending your back — and wasting your time.

Runners who stretch before their morning jog are no less likely to suffer an injury than those who don’t, a large new study shows.

“If you take all the runners and you group them, there wasn’t a difference between the people who stretched . . . and the people who just went out and ran,” says Dr. Daniel Pereles, the study’s author.

“The typical, five-minute, pre-run stretch didn’t seem to make any difference,” says Pereles, an orthopedic surgeon at George Washington University.

Pereles will present his findings Friday at a meeting of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons in San Diego.

A heated debate over the value of those pre-run contortions is raging in the running community.

Pereles, a former marathoner — and stretcher — who suffered a major tendon injury two years ago, conducted the study of some 2,700 regular runners out of curiosity. It is believed to be the first randomized, controlled examination of the issue.

The study’s runners were recruited through track team and magazine websites. They included all age groups and every kind — from ultra marathoners down to neighbourhood joggers. They ran a minimum of 10 miles (16 kilometres) a week.

Pereles says he’s already been confronted about his data by a New York physician who treats ballet injuries. That physician insisted that the typical five-minute stretch the study’s subjects went through is not nearly enough to bestow any protection.

“He said, ‘Your study’s not any good, because if you’re going to get any results from your stretching . . . you’re going to have to spend at least 10 minutes per muscle group’,’” Pereles recalls. “Well for a typical runner . . . that’s going to be 30 to 40 minutes of stretching. I said, ‘What kind of weed are you smoking? Most people have 30 to 40 minutes to run’.”

There are caveats here, however, Pereles says.

If you are used to stretching before running, don’t stop. And if you abstain, don’t start.

Pereles says runners who stopped stretching for his three-month study increased their injury risk by 40 per cent.

Likewise, non-stretchers who began the pre-run ritual saw their injury rates go up a similar amount.

But Pereles says he’s at a loss to explain this switch-up statistic.

“I don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know,” he says. “But it’s got to be something with the switch in that routine.”

It’s been shown in laboratory settings that stretched muscle cells tend to contract with more power, Pereles says. “But obviously a five minute pre-run stretch is not having enough of an effect in the body.”