I’m posing a question today without an answer from me (mainly because I don’t have one).
It’s somewhat generally accepted that stretching is a good thing – being flexible and mobile is good (or so we are told). But is there too much of a good thing?
An efficient runner is good at storing and releasing energy within and from their muscles. Try this analogy:
If you have a very flexible spring, it is easy to compress and returns softly to its uncompressed state. A stiff spring on the other hand is hard to compress, but when it is released it decompresses forcefully and with speed and power.
Interesting.
One would thing that as runners looking to run faster, we may in fact want a stiff spring to get a strong elastic response from our body. Overly flexible muscles may in fact dampen our body’s ability to release energy stored during the gait cycle.
As someone that dislikes stretching, I sure as heck hope this is true!
I think the take home is that there’s likely no “one-size-fits-all” approach to stretching – some people may need to increase their flexibility, but others may already have enough.
There’s plenty of current discussion around this topic: try reading Anatomy for Runners or this podcast from Kinetic Revolution for just a few views on it.
See you out there – Juddy