Before showing you how to stretch, I want to tell why you should stretch. Some runners never stretch and try to cover up the real reason they don’t (laziness) with silly theories. The main reason offered for not stretching is summarized by the supposedly rhetorical question, “You never see a racehorse stretch, do you?” What they’re trying to say is thoroughbreds seem to be able to run pretty well just by running. To suggest that humans need to do more to run is to argue with nature.
Yes, it’s true that you don’t see racehorses stretch. You also don’t see racehorses sit behind a desk eight hours a day, or run on asphalt, or start running after being sedentary for the previous 40 years. I don’t see racehorses eating spaghetti, either, but that doesn’t mean I think that runners shouldn’t. So maybe when we’re all bred solely to run fast and spend our days trotting around on dirt tracks, we can forego stretching. In the meantime, all runners, at least of the human variety, should stretch.
As running strengthens your muscles, it also shortens and tightens them. This is especially true of the prime movers on your back side: your Achilles tendons, calves, hamstrings, butt, and back muscles. You’re will feel better running, as well as most of the rest of the time, if these muscles are limber and can move through a wider range of motion.
By way of analogy, think about in which instance you’d rather launch into a sprint:
immediately after having been driving for the past two hours or after having walked around the block? Intuitively, you know that you feel better running when you’re looser, no matter what the racehorse fans would have you believe. And just as you’re more limber at a specific time if you’ve been moving around, you’re more limber in general if you regularly incorporate stretching into your running program. Another important reason that all runners should stretch is because properly doing so will lower the risk of injury. Note that I said “properly.” I’ll get to what that means in a bit. What I want to say here is that the anti-stretchers will often give you anecdotal evidence about runners they know who stretch and still get injured. To that I say, “Yeah, and…?” No one has ever claimed that stretching will prevent injury. And when it’s done wrong, it most definitely can cause injury.
But when stretching is done right, it can help keep you injury-free. That’s true for the same reason that a short, taut rope is more likely to break under a given amount of force than a longer one of the same strength. In both cases, the shorter, tighter fiber is being asked to do a relatively greater amount of work, and eventually, it will tear from the task. When your muscles and connective tissues are more supple, they can more easily absorb and distribute the repetitive shock that running subjects them to. Because of these benefits, stretching has some adherents who are as zealous about doing it as some people are opposed to it. I know some runners who couldn’t care less about what you think regarding their political positions, but will subject you to hours of debate if you dare question their approach to stretching. You’ll see these runners at tracks sometimes, stretching for a good half an hour on the infield, and then jogging a mile and heading home. Some runners, it seems, get so carried away with their stretching that they spend far more time on it than they do putting in the miles. Now, I’m all for people doing whatever exercises they find make them feel good. But this is a blog for runners, not would-be yoga masters. It’s hard enough to find time on a regular basis to keep up a consistent running program. I don’t want people to think that on top of their running, they need to spend several hours a week stretching. That’s not necessary, and I think you’re more likely to stick with a stretching routine if it becomes just that, a routine, and an easy one at that.
How much time should you allow for stretching? The program I outline in this blog section should take only about 15 minutes to do. If you can do that four times a week, that’s only one hour out of the 168 hours in a week. I don’t think that’s too much time to spend to contribute significantly to making your running easier, more enjoyable, and less interrupted by injury.
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