Effects of stretching before and after exercising on muscle soreness and risk of injury: systematic review

doi:10.1136/bmj.325.7362.468

BMJ 2002;325:468 ( 31 August )

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Effects of stretching before and after exercising on muscle soreness and risk of injury: systematic review

Rob D Herbert, senior lecturer, Michael Gabriel, physiotherapist.

School of Physiotherapy, University of Sydney, PO Box 170, Lidcombe, New South Wales 1825, Australia

Correspondence to: R D Herbert R.Herbert{at}fhs.usyd.edu.au

Objective: To determine the effects of stretching beforeand after exercising on muscle soreness after exercise, risk ofinjury, and athleticperformance.
Method: Systematicreview.
Data sources: Randomised or quasi-randomised studies identifiedby searching Medline, Embase, CINAHL, SPORTDiscus, and PEDro,and by recursive checking ofbibliographies.
Main outcome measures: Muscle soreness, incidence of injury, athleticperformance.
Results: Five studies, all of moderate quality, reportedsufficient data on the effects of stretching on muscle sorenessto be included in the analysis. Outcomes seemed homogeneous. Stretchingproduced small and statistically non-significant reductions inmuscle soreness. The pooled estimate of reduction in muscle soreness24 hours after exercising was only 0.9 mm on a 100 mm scale (95%confidence interval $-$ 2.6 mm to 4.4 mm). Data from two studieson army recruits in military training show that muscle stretchingbefore exercising does not produce useful reductions in injuryrisk (pooled hazard ratio 0.95, 0.78 to 1.16).
Conclusions: Stretching before or after exercising doesnot confer protection from muscle soreness. Stretching beforeexercising does not seem to confer a practically useful reductionin the risk of injury, but the generality of this finding needstesting. Insufficient research has been done with which to determinethe effects of stretching on sportingperformance.

What is already known on this topic
Reviews of the effects of stretching before exercising have drawn conflicting conclusions

The literature on effects of stretching before and after exercising on muscle soreness and risk of injury has not been systematically reviewed

What this study adds
Stretching before and after exercising does not confer protection from muscle soreness and stretching before exercise does not seem to confer a practically useful reduction in the risk of injury

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