🔥STRETCHING WHEN SHOULD YOU DO IT, WHAT DOES IT HELP WITH HAMSTRING FLEXIBILITY

Stretching is an important tool for improving flexibility and rom, however is there a greater benefit to stretching? Stretching improves muscles extensibility through two ways; active or how much your nervous system can tolerate a stretch and passive how much can the mechanical structures tolerate it. The first increases in ROM come from a decrease in active tension and tolerance to stretch.

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Does stretching prevent muscle soreness? The quick answer is no; looking at a systematic review of 23 studies which looked at the effect of stretching on muscle soreness showed there was no clinically important reduction in muscle soreness between people who stretched and those who didn’t (Herbert RD 2011). Does static stretching decrease strength? Quick answer is yes (but there is more to it); Strength loss due to static stretching is called (stretch endued strength loss) and it is thought to be caused by the lengthening of the muscle this is transient (Kay AD 2012) . The authors note that a max voluntary contraction prior to stretching may decrease strength loss.
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Can you Improve flexibility without stretching? Quick answer is (maybe); looking at a study in the (JSCR) which compared static stretching vs full ROM exercise. They found out that when performing exercise through their FULL ROM untrained individuals were able to increase their flexibility as much as the group who performed static stretching. This was a preliminary study so its results should be taken as such (Morton SK 2011).
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Stretching before or after resistance exercise? (Gil et al 2002) looked at increase in flexibility with pre or post exercise stretching. He found out that post-exercise stretching yield a greater increase in muscle flexibility since exercise seem to reduce the effect of the stretch after. This suggests post exercise stretching may be more beneficial in regards to increasing flexibility. However key pre exercise stretching may be beneficial to allow for proper form when one lacks mobility.