Stretching — Does It Really Do What We Think It Does?

Caveat

I have to preface this blog by transparently stating that I grew up dancing, wanted a career in dance and still dance as a hobby. Stretching is our holy grail. It’s part and parcel of the dancing habit.

I am still inclined to stretch during a dance class and as a cool-down after any exercise.

So those who share my passion for dancing, and pursue flexibility, may be less than impressed by this blog!

Let me say, I also didn’t want to believe everything I read when I started looking into the research. Many of the arguments in this blog have been informed by the work of Paul Ingraham (2026) particularly his extensive review “Quite a stretch: Stretching science has shown that this extremely popular form of exercise has almost no measurable benefits.”

Ingraham has a reputation for critically examining the available evidence around common pain and exercise myths, and his analysis of stretching research is thorough and well referenced.

Add to that the frustration I sometimes feel as a therapist when I hear the reasons people give for stretching– in those moments, I have to try really, really hard to hold my tongue!

So, if you fall into this category of reader, try to read this with an inquisitive mind. After all, it’s not prescriptive and you will do you in the end, but sometimes there are more appropriate ways to skin a cat!

THE BOTTOM LINE

There is currently no strong evidence to support the claim that stretching

• prevents injury
• speeds up recovery
• prevents Delayed Onset Muscle Stiffness (DOMS)
• improves performance.

And static stretching is definitely not an appropriate warm-up strategy.

Yet, even in the face of no evidence, we will stretch, because

• it feels good
• we believe it is beneficial
• we have simply never questioned the practice.  

There is one thing that researchers do agree upon with regards to stretching:

It improves flexibility,

but so does strength training.

Confused? Check out THE SCIENCE.

Only interested in the flexibility part – carry on with the HOW TO STRETCH PROPERLY.

HOW TO STRETCH PROPERLY

Firstly, check your goal. If the reason you are stretching is to:

• Warm up

• Prevent injury

• Recover from an injury

• Prevent DOMS

• Improve performance

You may be disappointed, because there is no scientific evidence to support these claims.

If, however, your goal is to improve your flexibility, then keep reading.

Currently there are no universally accepted standards for stretching techniques, so technically there is no single “correct” way to stretch.

That said, I have always advocated for what I call flexible strength — having strength at the end of your available range of motion (ROM).

In practical terms, this is probably the most useful and protective form of flexibility we can have.

The most useful flexibility is strength at the end of your available range of motion.

As someone who spent many hours in dance studios (and still does), I was quietly delighted to see this idea gaining traction in the professional dance world.

The Australian Ballet Company, for example, has shifted away from traditional passive stretching and toward strength-based approaches to flexibility — a move that many other international dance companies have since adopted.

Their physios explain it simply:

“Dancers need to have optimal range of movement, they need to be able to move their limbs through extreme ranges of movement, but … in a really active controlled way …. You can’t get good, dynamic, explosive, powerful extreme range without strength”. (Dance Magazine Australia, 2019, para. 6).

Which is why sitting passively in side splits or over-splits – while impressive on Instagram – does not necessarily translate to improved dynamic performance.

So what does “flexible strength” actually look like?

You can train strength at long muscle lengths using either:

• Isometric contractions (the muscle contracts without moving)
• Eccentric contractions (the muscle is working while it lengthens).

Here are a couple of examples of what that actually looks like in plain English 😉:

Hamstrings (the muscles at the back of your thighs):

Isometric version

Move into a forward fold (head dropping toward your toes) until you feel the hamstrings stretch.

Then gently pull your heels into the floor — as if you were trying to drag them backwards — without actually moving them

Eccentric version

Use a hip hinge movement (or a Romanian deadlift for the “higher graders” amongst us).

As you lower your torso, your hamstrings are working while they lengthen, effectively building strength at the very range where people usually try to stretch them.

Hip flexors (the muscles at the front of your hips):

Isometric version
Move into a kneeling lunge stretch until you feel the stretch at the front of the hip of the back leg.

Then gently try to drag that back knee forward along the floor without actually letting it move.

Eccentric version
Start standing and lift one knee up in front of you (like the beginning of a march).

Then slowly lower that leg back toward the floor with control.

Calves

Isometric version
Move into a calf stretch against a wall until you feel the stretch in the back of your lower leg.

Then gently press the ball of your foot into the floor as if you were trying to do a calf raise — but without actually lifting your heel.

Eccentric version
Stand on the edge of a step with the balls of your feet on the step and your heels hanging off.

Rise up onto your toes, then slowly lower your heels down below the step as far as you comfortably can.

Chest muscles

Isometric version
Place your forearm against a doorway and gently turn your body away until you feel the stretch across the front of your chest.

Then lightly press your arm into the doorframe as if you were trying to bring your arm back toward the centre of your body.

Eccentric version
Lie on your back holding a light weight in one hand with your arm pointing toward the ceiling.

Slowly lower the arm out to the side until you feel a stretch across the chest, keeping control of the weight the whole way down.

In both the isometric and eccentric options, you are controlling tension near the end of a muscle’s range and teaching the nervous system that this position is strong and usable — which is ultimately what improves functional flexibility.

How often? How long?

Here’s the slightly awkward truth:

Nobody can say with much authority how often you need to stretch or how long a stretch should be held.

It does appear that the more time invested in stretching, the smaller the additional gains become — a classic case of diminishing returns.

Not terribly helpful, I know 🙄

So if you need a simple rule of thumb, the old suggestion of holding a stretch for about 15 seconds is probably as sensible a place to start as any.

If my BOTTOM LINE has discombobulated you — and you’d like evidence that I’m not just being deliberately difficult — the SCIENCE is waiting below.

THE SCIENCE

What are we actually doing when we stretch?

Let’s be clear here:

When we “stretch”, the tissue we should be targeting is muscle.

We do not want to stretch ligaments or tendons.

Their job is to stabilise joints and transmit force, not to lengthen.

Unfortunately, I suspect many enthusiastic couch-stretchers are actually tugging on those tissues thinking they’re getting “more bang for buck.” 😉

Most people assume stretching literally makes muscles longer.

Buzz kill: it probably doesn’t.

The biomechanics of stretching are still surprisingly controversial. Researchers still debate whether improved flexibility comes from:

• The plasticity of the tissues allowing them to lengthen (mechanical change).

• The nervous system simply allowing more range (sensory tolerance).

• A combination of both.

Currently the evidence leans heavily towards the neurological adaptation rather than structural change.

Stiffness is a sensation: a warning signal from the nervous system that limits us when we move in a certain way. This sensation has nothing to do with flexibility. As Ingraham puts it:

“Increasing flexibility may be more of a nervous system “hack” than a matter of changing tissue.”
(Ingraham, 2026, “Some interesting research,” para. 5)

In other words, what stretching trains is tolerance, not length.

Let’s talk about flexibility – as in the capacity of a joint and its surrounding tissues to move through an available ROM.

Why is flexibility considered important?

Partly because it allows joints to move comfortably through the ranges required for activities of daily living (ADLs).

When flexibility improves, what the body has really learned is trust.

Repeated exposure to end-range tension teaches the nervous system that the position is safe, so it gradually becomes less protective and allows the joint to move further before triggering the reflex to tighten the muscle.

Do we actually need much flexibility?

Certain pursuits demand flexibility: dancers, contortionists, martial artists.

Good for them.

But flexibility is not a primary health marker in the way that cardiovascular fitness or lean muscle mass are.

Outside of these specialised disciplines, extreme flexibility has surprisingly little practical value.

Most people — even most athletes — simply need enough range of motion to perform the movements they regularly do without compensation.

How often does daily life require the ability to do the splits?

You might argue that when you slip on a wet tile, the ability to do the splits may stop you from pulling or tearing your hamstring.

Yes, but only if that slip happened in the exact same beautifully aligned position as your static split practice.

Any deviation from that practiced static stretch is not going to guarantee you an injury-free slip.

Why?

Hamstring injuries rarely occur during the slow, controlled movements.

A muscle tear usually occurs when the muscle is rapidly lengthening, while also trying to contract, often under load and at speed.

Slipping is typically a messy, high-velocity action.

Even if your hamstrings can tolerate a beautiful passive split, it doesn’t mean they’re prepared for the chaotic combination of speed, force, and reflexive contraction that usually causes the tears.

And of course, Murphy’s Law will dictate that you will slip with your less supple leg forward anyway🙄

Other flexibility “party tricks” include:

• The ability to touch your toes with locked knees, so you can trim your toenails.

• Extending your arm behind you to swat your badly behaving child in the back seat of your car.

Both technically require flexibility.

Both goals can be achieved without it.

“A limited ROM usually does not cause or sustain injuries”
(Ingraham, 2026, “Specific stretching for specific injuries,” para. 2)

Does flexibility matter for health?

If we are talking about meaningful health markers, time is generally better invested in:

• cardiovascular fitness
• muscle strength and lean mass

And interestingly, when people train these qualities, flexibility often improves anyway.

What matters is having

• sufficient ROM to perform the movements you actually use
• having strength and control within that range.

How are we stretching?

Common stretching practices include:

• Static stretching – holding the muscle in an elongated position for a prolonged period.
• Dynamic stretching – controlled movement through ROM. This includes ballistic stretching, mobility drills and any activity like yoga, dance, martial arts, where movement and stretching are intertwined. 
• Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF) – fancy term for contracting the agonist muscle to force the antagonist to relax.
• Pandiculation – that reflexive thing we do when we wake up or start moving after a period of immobility: it’s stretching, contracting and yawning like your cat🐈, which is thought to promote homeostasis.

What is stretching achieving?

According to a consensus of 20 stretching experts in 2025,

“stretching reliably improves flexibility”.  

But strength training can do the same, — often with additional benefits such as muscle hypertrophy and joint stability.

For most of us, I’d think strength training offers a better return on time investment.

There is also some emerging research which suggests that stretching may improve arterial stiffness – which could benefit your cardiovascular health.

However, it is already well-established that aerobic exercise and strength training improve arterial stiffness, possibly rendering stretching the less efficient tool.

What stretching does not reliably do

Warm Up

Stretching to warm up is akin to stretching your steak out to cook it.

It’s counterintuitive.

This statement is backed by a review of 4500 studies dating back to 2011.

In fact, this research even suggests that static stretching to warm up can

• predispose you to injury

• reduce performance,

Because you inhibit or switch off your muscles, temporarily reducing strength and power output, just before you want to use them.

Static stretching before performance can reduce strength and power output.

Injury prevention

Studies dating back as far as 2005 have not supported the idea that stretching prevents muscle injuries.

The biology is simple:

In other words, injury was not prevented with stretching.

Injury recovery

Stretching does not help you recover from injury.

If an injury is not caused by a soft-tissue restriction, stretching will not address the underlying problem.

Your back ache may not be because your hamstrings are inflexible, so stretching the hammies will not resolve the source of your problem.

That stiffness you may feel with an injury is frequently neurological protection, not a physically shortened muscle.

Rehabilitation generally focuses

• on load management
• progressive strengthening

… and is sometimes accompanied by stretching.

DOMS

Some people stretch to prevent DOMS.

And whilst there was a study done in 2016 on rats which suggested that stretching has an anti-inflammatory effect on connective tissue (my favourite, fascia!), unfortunately there is significantly more evidence to suggest that nothing really helps with DOMS, except not doing the exercise in the first place.

Performance

Some athletes stretch to improve performance – yes,

if your improved performance parameter relies on reduced muscle strength or temporarily inhibited muscle.

Then by all means stretch just before you perform.

Static stretching is well known to reduce power output.

Cramps

If you need to fix a cramp, then yes, stretching can relieve a cramp in the moment.

But since the cause of cramps remain poorly understood, habitual stretching does not reliably prevent them.

So why do we still stretch?

It feels good.

So does

• scratching a mozzie bite
• scrolling Instagram
• eating chocolate

They all feel good, but aren’t necessarily doing any good.

If you are stretching tissues that are already over-stretched and weak, you may be perpetuating the problem.

That said, there is undeniable power in placebo and belief 😉

Feeling good does not always equal physiological benefit.

A few other interesting factoids about stretching:

That sensation of stiffness can arise from many sources:

• low vitamin D
• low magnesium levels
• certain medications
• nerve compression
• “inflammaging” —chronic low-grade inflammation.

When stiffness has these kinds of underlying drivers, it’s worth asking an obvious question:

How exactly would stretching fix that?

Some muscles, such as the quads, are barely stretch-able.

When the joint stops moving before the muscle runs out of stretch, the sensation of stretching may not represent meaningful muscle lengthening at all.

Stretching can sometimes cause injury, particularly in activities that push extreme ranges (dance, gymnastics, martial arts).

Certain medical conditions — such as Ehlers-Danlos syndrome —make aggressive stretching inappropriate.

If stretching is more of a “neural hack” you’d think that it would be appropriate in conditions that involve pathological contractures (eg Dupytrens), and yet, sadly there is no evidence to suggest that stretching, even neurodynamic stretching, meaningfully prevents or treats these conditions.

Our cats and dogs (and other animals) don’t habitually stretch before they chase the mouse or after a round of “Fetch” – just saying…

Conclusion

Improving flexibility does not necessarily require dedicated stretching sessions.

Strength training — particularly when muscles are challenged at longer lengths — can improve range of motion by giving muscles and joints the strength they need to move safely through those ranges.

Research increasingly suggests that this kind of loading may even stimulate longitudinal growth of the muscle fascicles themselves, allowing muscles to operate more comfortably at longer lengths.

When movement training develops

• strength
• range
• speed
• muscular endurance
• coordination

… the body naturally becomes capable of accessing its available range of motion.

Yet questioning stretching beliefs remains surprisingly contentious.

Stretching sits in a strangely protected category of exercise habits.

For decades we have been told it is essential:

• stretch before sport
• stretch to prevent injury
• stretch to stay “loose.”

It has been taught in schools, embedded in yoga and dance culture, and repeated so often that it now feels like common sense rather than a hypothesis.

Add the fact that stretching often feels good, and it is easy to assume that pleasant sensation must equal physiological necessity.

So when research suggests that many of the traditional claims are weaker than once believed, it does not just challenge a technique — it challenges years of habit, professional advice, and personal ritual.

Questioning stretching can feel a bit like questioning gravity:
even if the science is nuanced, people instinctively push back.

References (with supported statements)