The claimEvidence A · guideline-tier
Stretching before exercise prevents injury
The evidence
Stretching's effect on sports-injury prevention is small enough to ignore; what cuts injuries by about two-thirds is strength training, not a pre-game stretch.
The mechanism, in brief
"Stretch before you exercise so you don't pull something" is probably the most widely repeated advice in fitness. When researchers actually tested it, the answer was this: in pooled randomized trials, people who stretched and people who did not got injured at almost the same rate. What clearly pushed injuries down was…
Sources (2)
- Behm, D. G., Blazevich, A. J., Kay, A. D., & McHugh, M. (2016). Acute effects of muscle stretching on physical performance, range of motion, and injury incidence in healthy active individuals: A systematic review. Applied Physiology, Nutrition, and Metabolism, 41(1), 1-11.
- Thelen, D. G., Chumanov, E. S., Hoerth, D. M., Best, T. M., Swanson, S. C., Li, L., Young, M., & Heiderscheit, B. C. (2005). Hamstring muscle kinematics during treadmill sprinting. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 37(1), 108-114.