Tom Stormcrowe

https://www.mensjournal.com/healthFit...stretches.html

The Essential Stretches
Recent studies knock it, so perhaps stretching isn't necessary? OH YES IT IS. Do as athletes do, and work the following moves into your workout to stay fit, flexible, and injury-free.

Stretching hurts. It's time-consuming. It's dull. So when yet another study says stretching has little impact on athletic performance or injury avoidance (as a handful of recent studies have done), relieved weekend warriors are happy to cross it off their workout checklists. Don't be fooled. Sure, overextending your muscles can make them too elastic, or, if you haven't warmed up, even lead to muscle pulls. But in sport after sport, the most successful and enduring athletes are the loosest. NFL workhorse Eddie George, 33, credited his longevity to staying flexible through yoga, and Wimbledon champ Roger Federer is famously limber. "Stretching not only improves range of motion, it prepares your muscles and helps them recover," says Suzanne Meth, manager of ultraexclusive New York gym E. What's more, proper stretching can free constricted nerves, realign your frame, and even prevent muscle-degenerating fibrosis as you age. Whether you're running or lifting, the following basic stretches should be an essential part of your workout routine.

Read more at the above link and there's an Image tutorial as well

Bm7b5

I'm just a newbie at biking, but I run regularly. I must stretch or I can't sleep at night. My legs will cramp up and cause me a lot of pain. Spending 15 minutes stretching after a 7 mile run cures the leg cramps for the most part.

unixpro

I'm 48 years old, weigh in at 210, and stand only 6'6" tall. However, I stretch after every workout. Less if its just a ride; more if I've been doing weights. I'm the only person I know who is my age, weight, and height that can, without discomfort, touch my toes (actually, sometimes my back pops when I do this -- that's an interesting sound!), reach my head to my knees, and sit in a full lotus position. I can even get my head about 2/3 of the way to my knees while sitting in a full lotus.

Yes, stretching is a good thing.

damnable

I have to admit, I don't like articles like this.
For some people stretching is good others no effect or even bad. So there needs to be more articles out there telling people the proper way to stretch with much stressing that certain ways of stretching don't work as well for some people.

For example, take the calf stretch in the article. Doesn't work for me personally as one of my calves and achilles are much more flexible that the other. It also only really stretches one part of your calf, rather than including some of the lower muscle. They also show it on a treadmill where you have to rely to some extent on the strength of your arms to hold you upright as the side bar on the treadmill prevents you from leaning forward to balance yourself. There are other, generally safer ways to perform this stretch.

I've read some of the scientific papers on streching and what they say makes sense. However, they do make me feel a lot looser and...hmmm...good? The best way I can think of describing it is that it makes me feel like I have just had a massage.

Mago

I stretch, but then again, I do martial arts and other stuff besides ride, so I need to have full ROM on my body parts.

socalrider

here is a nice website with good pics of a variety of stretches..

https://www.frixo.com/sites/fitness/stretches.html

StephenH

Have you ever seen where they interview the world's oldest person, ask the secret of his longevity, and he says something like "I drank pickle juice every morning, and that's why I lived to be 110"? That's kind of the way stretching seems to me.

In that original link, the author uses exactly that reasoning. This person does yoga, he's been playing football a long time, therefore yoga is the reason he can play football a long time. But that doesn't necessarily establish the cause-and-effect relationship that is assumed. If I'm not mistaken, don't ALL football players stretch? At least I've seen whole teams out on the field doing stretching at the same time. So how do you establish that the stretching prevents injury, when you could just as easily argue that it must cause injuries?

I haven't read the studies referred to in the article, and can't comment on their validity. But it seems to me that somebody somewhere must be trying to establish whether there is actually a cause-and-effect relationship here, rather than just saying "Joe did it, and he didn't get hurt, so if I do it, I won't get hurt." If something hurts, is boring, is time consuming, and seems to have no clear benefit when studied by disinterested parties, I don't think I'll be too eager to start doing it.

ovrrdrive

I prefer to ease into the ride and gradually work up to speed after a mile or so. By doing this the actual muscles that are being used get warmed up gradually and stretch naturally. Then I ride as usual for however long I'm out. If I stretch at all, I stretch after the ride when the muscles are loose and warmed up to increase the ROM in them for the next ride.

chunkyd

StephenH - I do have to ask you age.. Because many of us in youth never bothered to stretch like we should have (I did for football), When we are young we have a natural flexibility but as you get older if your not maintaining that ROM then it adjusts to what your doing, There are too many examples that stretching has obvious benefits. Once again navy seals,NFL,Gymnist, ETC..Etc.. to say it doesn't work for "you".
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Stretching works for everyone.... (lets take the i like/i dislike out of it) i know i know.. "To each their own, Do what you feel comfortable with" those are sooo popular... but at some point facts are facts and it's just a matter of saying... I know thats right but i dont wanna do it.

Just like with lifting, form is very important when stretching. Make sure you learn proper form and stretch stretch stretch! before and after.

If contortionist and gymnast still stretch then it's a ridiculous idea to say anyone is too flexible to stretch!!