Guest Blog Post: Long Term Static Stretching

Today I am featuring a guest blog post from Leonard Van Gelder, ATC, CSCS. He recently started blogging, so I thought I would give you a snippet, and you can read on if you're interested! Leonard is currently finishing his DPT degree, but has already been published!




What do we know about the effects of long-term stretching? At this time, we know we can use it to improve static range of motion (ROM)^8,9, muscle strength, endurance, and power ^7,8. There is also some evidence that long-term (again not acute!) stretching has a role in decreasing musculotendinous injury².  The mechanism involved in producing improvements in ROM from long term stretching is unknown at this time. Classically, the belief was that we are primarily “lengthening the muscle”. However, ROM improvements related to long-term static stretching appear to be largely related to increased stretch tolerance and not an actual changes in tissue extensibility ^3,5,9, which would indicate some sort a neurological influence. The exact mechanism for the strength, endurance, power, and injury prevention benefits are also unknown, but a couple of thoughts seem to permeate. The first being that hypertrophy of skeletal muscle tissue and/or connective tissue may play a role, but this has only been demonstrated in animal studies ¹⁴.  Which brings us to a neural influence. We typically think about the neural influences of stretching on the acute effects of performance, but between previous evidence^3,5,9 and now Nelson et al. ¹², I am hedging a bet towards long term neural adaptation being a key component in the positive outcomes of long-term stretching.


Click here to finish his post on his new blog!