Why Stretching a Tight Muscle Won’t Improve Your Performance

We’ve all heard it before, “you should stretch after you work out, so you don’t get ____” (either sore, injured or both). But does this actually do anything? Does stretching actually do anything?

Before we go any further, I do want to preface that yoga does have its place, foam rolling and soft tissue release have their place. I am talking about performing stretching and self-myofascial release due to a belief that it will fix outcomes.

A good portion of the literature being released in the last several years suggests that stretching, especially static stretching may not be the end all be all that we once thought (a simple Google Scholar search will suffice as evidence). Stretching does have its place in performance, however. Pre-exercise dynamic stretches, dynamic warm ups, or those that aid in increasing blood flood, warming the body and mentally preparing an individual for their task they are about to do can be advantageous. But, static stretching, or long passive duration holds and rolling, for the vast majority may not be worth it. The ROI (return on investment) may just not be enough. Either before or after an exercise bout. Let’s dive deeper.

Whenever a client ask me if they should stretch, do yoga, foam roll, or use a ‘Theragun’, my consistent reply is why? Not yes, not no, but why. If he or she has a reason for said use, then I may be more inclined to agree, as we know the power of placebo is massive. But simply stretching for the sake of stretching, rolling because you see your favorite hockey player do it and using a massage gun because an Instagram celebrity has one is not going to improve performance, let alone muscle stiffness or fatigue.

One of the main reasons we consistently think of stretching is because of the belief that it will make us less sore, or it will improve range of motion. And this may be true, but not because of the stretching itself. The stretches are not physically making you less sore or giving you more flexibility; and therefore range of motion. Stretching is simply allowing your body to relax, through proprioceptors (these are receptors in muscles, joints and tendinous tissue that provide responses back to the Central Nervous System), in the form of what is called Golgi Tendons and Muscle Spindles. Golgi Tendons inhibit muscular tension, which causes a relaxation response. While muscle spindles indicate the degree to which a muscle is activated to overcome a stimulus. Muscle Spindles are concerned with muscle length and rate of changes in length. Muscle spindles facilitate activation of the muscle, while Golgi Tendons inhibit muscle activation. The ability to override Golgi Tendon is an adaptation that leads to relaxation in a given stimulus.

If we look at just these two metrics of tissue response within the body we can come to 2 conclusions: a detrained individual will have a higher Golgi Tendon response, with a lower Muscle Spindle response, while a trained individual will be the opposite. But why? Because an untrained individual is not used to the feeling of muscles activating, contracting and being used for purposeful work. In essence, he or she is not used to “being in the suck” and therefore their body compensates as a protective mechanism. This can also lead to muscle soreness inadvertently because he or she is not used to it. So stretching, doing yoga, foam rolling can actually be a way to allow said individual to overcome their Golgi Tendon response and be able to sit in the suck for longer periods of time. This alone demonstrates that stretching, especially long duration stretches are not going to fix anything but rather give the illusion of a fix for individuals who do not know otherwise.

But here is where it gets cool: if you increase your work capacity, you decrease Golgi Tendon responses and increase Muscle Spindle. For example progressively increasing the amount of reps and sets you can squat can have a similar response. 1 set of 10 at week 1, versus 3 sets of 10 at week 4. Work capacity, volume, load, intensity have all increased, but yet you are not injured. A neural pathway has been created to aid. You haven’t done anything different from a proprioceptive standpoint.

At the same time, stretching because a muscle is tight or you can’t feel it is likely missing the forest for the trees. A muscle can be tight due to a few reasons: acute injury, instability at the joint above or below or general weakness from doing too much too soon. An acute injury may benefit from stretching, but depending on what was injured, this may not be any different than following a fairly low volume strength program, where volume gradually increases. The same premise can be applied with general bodily weakness. Instability at the joint above or below is likely an issue that is beyond stretching entirely: you are literally trying to put out a house fire with your garden hose while firefighters watch in the distance.

In a crude sense, what I’m getting at is: you’re missing the point of why your muscle is tight in the first place. In many cases you likely have something else occurring up the chain of that limb: For example, hip pain that leads to hip flexor tightness. This one is kind of funny. My first question with this would be: which hip flexor? Since none of the muscles that flex the hip are purely “hip flexors” only, can we even argue that stretching the hip flexors works? My next question is: can you stand on one leg? What happens when you do? Do you shift to the side, do you lose your balance, are your ankles unstable, and are you unable to load into your glutes? If you answered yes to any of these, then the issue is no longer localized to that area, but something occurring above and/or below that location. This can be applied to every muscle, every joint and every situation where you ‘feel tight and want to stretch’.

As a big take home, in my opinion: if you’re stretching because you feel good doing it, or it provides a positive benefit to your training experience, then sure do it. But, I do not think it will truly result in performance benefits, let alone address instability. Flexibility and mobility are terms often thrown around as indicators of performance, but how many times are you actually in a downward dog or doing a warrior 2 pose? Not many. Keep this in mind the next time you think, “my hamstrings are tight, let me grab a band a reef on them with a straightened knee”. Maybe think: “I wonder why they’re tight: maybe it’s because of my pelvis, maybe it’s because I’m doing too much too soon, or maybe it’s because I’ve been sitting too much”.

As an aside, this may seem as though I am against stretching. To be clear, I am not. I stretch, my clients stretch. I utilize stretching for different purposes than the above: stretching for myself is done as a way to mentally calm my brain, to allow me to focus on breath, to be less sympathetic. For many of my clients, this is the same; while for others it is because they simply enjoy a deep stretch at the end of their workout, but they are more than aware of the benefits and drawbacks, the ROI if you will. Be informed, train smart.