Dec 11
18
If you are anything at all like most people, you probably invest some time stretching, either before or subsequent to exercise.
For most, post workout stretching is practically essential. Over the years, stretching out has been backed as a way to decrease your injury risk, improve exercise performance, and alleviate muscle soreness after strength training.
Stretching is used by so many people in the belief that it reduces the risk of strains and sprains, it’s uncommon to hear anyone query its benefit. Nevertheless, regardless of more or less widespread acceptance, you will find almost no data to demonstrate that stretching ahead of exercise has any impact on injury .
The idea that stretching gets rid of lactic acid in muscles highlights 2 of the greatest health and fitness misconceptions going. Specifically, that it is a “waste product” that creates muscle fatigue, and that it causes the soreness you experience in your muscles the day or two after a tough training session.
Most people, even if they’ve entered a gym, have heard about lactic acid. It’s likely that you’ve been told that it accumulates inside your muscles when you exercise, causes that unpleasant “burning” sensation, and eventually makes your muscles give out.
The fact is, far from being a waste product, lactic acid is really a supply of fuel for your muscles. In fact, one of the reasons that intensive training helps you train harder and for a longer time is that it makes your muscles better at utilizing lactic acid.The concept lactic acid is bad is one of the classic mistakes in the history of science.
How about the idea that lactic acid triggers muscle soreness?
Lactic acid has nothing to do with post-exercise muscle soreness. In fact, a lot of the lactic acid has disappeared from your muscles soon after exercise, regardless of whether you choose to do any stretching.
Exactly why do your muscles get sore a day or two after working out?
A session of unaccustomed or unusually intense exercise leads to inflammation – the same natural safety mechanism that triggers the redness, swelling and pain if you cut a finger.
Inflammation is the human body’s reaction to damage and helps to start the process of restoration and recovery. And one of the stages in this process is an rise in the production of immune cells, which hit a peak 24-48 hours after exercise.
These cells then generate chemical compounds that make pain receptors inside your body – which are responsible for the transmission of certain pain signals – more sensitive.
The outcome?
When you move, these pain receptors are triggered. Since they will be way more responsive to pain than normal, you find yourself feeling sore.
On a relevant note, I ought to also point out that stretching after a workout doesn’t seem to have much of an effect in so far as muscle soreness is concerned.
When a group of New Zealand experts assessed a variety of muscle soreness studies, they learned that stretching after training brought about an average decrease in post-exercise soreness of just 2% – a result that’s likely to be of “no practical significance” for most people.
Obviously, this does not suggest that you ought not perform any post workout stretching. However, if you’re only doing so because you’ve been assured that stretching removes lactic acid in muscles, or that it’s likely to minimize muscle soreness, there is minimal research to show that it makes any kind of genuine difference.