I’ve just came across with a brazilian article published 3 days ago. Despite of what “common sense” says it just confirms what i’ve been saying for years: unless very specific (and few) situations stretch doesn’t do much for you. It can actually slow down your pace when running and decrease your power output (this last one is mention in another study).
My question is: Why so many fitness professional still do it? And elite sport coaches? Is the research wrong? Or there are very lazy professionals that find it easy to do what they always did?
A client of mine mention some of the facts you will find in the article to a fellow fitness professional in London. The answer was:
” But athletes do it and their fitness and training outcome is very good.” – It’s not proven that stretching helped.
I call it: believes. It’s like football players that come into the pitch and always do some funny religious things. Does it help then? Maybe, psychologically. In the physical point of view? Nop….
Check out the article here