Stretching

Motivated by a tweaked muscle in my back, I have been investigating stretching and flexibility.  I really don't stretch, because whenever I've tried it in the past it hasn't really yielded me any benefits.

Also, there isn't much science to support the notion that stretching prevents injuries.  As explained in this pdf , "The Great Stretching Debate", a recent meta-analysis showed that neither stretching before or after exercise helps reduce injuries. 

All this suggests one of two things: 1) stretching doesn't work, or 2) the type of stretching being tested doesn't work.  As I researched the different types of stretching, I was amazed at the varieties: static stretching, passive stretching, ballistic stretching, PNF, etc.  How can stretching be so complicated, I wondered.

For a stretching precedent, as always, I looked at our hunter-gather ancestors.  I am unaware of any evidence that they engaged in any formal stretching.  However, they did lead active lives and perhaps "stretched" in the course of their regular movements.

My other immediate thought was how animals stretch.  I see cats stretch quite a bit, and they aren't doing any bizarre stretches or holding stretches for a certain number of seconds.  Their stretching is always intuitive.

I only found one author that connected animal stretching to human stretching.  The author is Bob Cooley, and the book is "The Genius of Flexibility".  I just got the book, and it seems to have a lot of "fluff", but so far I agree with the theory.  His idea is that animals properly stretch by contracting and stretching a muscle at the same time.  While this sounds strange, the idea is just to have the muscle resist the stretch as the stretch is being applied.  He calls the idea "resistance stretching" and says it helped him rehabilitate after a serious accident.

I will experiment with resistance stretching and see how it goes.  This is, at least to me, a simple and understandable way to stretch.  Stretching just can't be that difficult; all of our furry friends seem to have already figured it out.