It looks very plausible that stretching before you exercise doesn’t do much for you. Multiple older surveys suggested this.
Annoyingly, the studies linked in the previous paragraph are 2 decades old, and somehow I can’t find a large, well controlled, trial.
What about being flexible, does being more flexible prevent injury?
Being more flexible helps to a point, depending on the activity. Being too flexible is a thing, if your body doesn’t have the strength to handle the new range of motion. Strength is VERY important to control what your body is doing. Being able to move a bunch of places without control is bad. Conversely, having the strength to move a body part without the flexibility to move it can also be bad.
As with nearly everything in life, balance is key.
Yeah, it’s all about various systems being balanced. Some people who have muscle pain try to ease it through stretching that muscle, but that can actually make things worse if the underlying problem is that the muscles that act in opposition to the painful muscle are too weak.
It depends. Like, we should really use common sense here.
If a lack of flexibility results in compensatory movement patterns, or results in force being directed to a small, fragile joint, then yes, a lack of flexibility can result in injury.
On the other hand, if you are very flexible, but do not have strength in your full range of motion, you can also end up putting large amounts if stress on joints in ways they were not meant to handle.
The contortionist and the powerlifter are both very capable athletes in their own rights. But they should be wary of toying with the other’s sport.
New fetish unlocked.
Not necessarily. You can be flexible and still have tight muscles before working out or because of a previous day’s workout. Your tightness point might be more than a less flexible person is capable of, but it’s still a tight muscle.
For me, I have flexible glutes relative to my hamstrings (not hypermobility), and I pull my glutes on a regular basis.
im incredibly inflexible for splits and such with the legs but have always been able to folkd up my knees and have my butt on the floor (ok not as much at this age). I can grab my elbo behind my back and I can do the jujitsu wrist stretching excersises to a more extreme level than most others in class. Its like im flexible at the tips but not at all at the core.
I’ve found that eliminating unnecessary exertion is also effective at reducing injuries.
Only up to a point. Hyper-flexibility, especially of hinge joints, actually causes injury frequently.
I have hyper-flexibility, and I hurt myself quite a lot because there’s just no resistance to the movement until it’s too late in many parts of my body. I also have to be very careful with my elbows because they bend backward about 15 degrees, and so could very easily be snapped by a forceful impact when fully extended.