Static Stretching Cook

5.5 MB PDF file

Gray Cook

November 5, 2007 02:34 PM

Recently I had an opportunity to hear my good friend, Mike Boyle give a talk at a Perform Better Summit.
In his opening statements he made mention to the effective use of static stretching in some of his
programs. Some attendees in the room would have had a more positive response if Mike had said, "hey
guys let's go kill some kittens". It was almost like Mike had to defend static stretching, even though
there is some research showing its effectiveness. Research also shows some more efficient ways to get
muscle length to change. I'm not going to waste your time with those references at this point; A Goggle
or Medline search can help you with that. Dr. Stuart McGill has stated that "static stretching deadens
the muscle from a neural perspective ? diminishing the stretch reflex and reducing peak strength and
power" and I agree with this statement. Over a long period of time I feel that indiscriminately holding
static stretches will create more problems than it will correct. So why am I saying Mike and Stuart both
have a point. Let me explain:

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