• Fitness & Health
• Sport & Exercise Science
• Physical Education
• Strength & Conditioning
• Sports Medicine
• Sport Management
• Dance

Basic stretching guidelines for rehabilitation and injury prevention

This is an excerpt from Stretching Anatomy-4th Edition by Arnold G. Nelson,Jouko Kokkonen,Tyler Farney.

It is controversial whether or not stretching is beneficial for warm-up, injury prevention, or post training recovery. Although is well known that stretching increases range of motion, the extent to which a stretching program contributes to improved overall recovery or injury prevention remains to be seen. More frequent exposure to mechanical stress, however, gradually increases the ability of muscles, tendons, and ligaments to withstand or absorb greater stresses. Therefore, regular stretching of the musculoskeletal system may help reduce injuries.

One area where stretching might be helpful is during the early stages of a musculoskeletal injury rehabilitation. During rehabilitation, injured areas may experience muscle atrophy while noninjured areas are being trained. As a result, it has been reported that there can be up to a 20 percent muscular imbalance between limbs following a rehabilitation program (Eagle et al. 2019). Since stretching can improve muscular strength over time, passive stretching of the injured area along with regular resistance training of the non-injured area could help minimize strength imbalances between limbs.

Additionally, passive stretching during rehabilitation takes minimal equipment. Since people undergoing rehabilitation may have limited access to strength training equipment, muscle atrophy can occur, increasing the risk of injury. Performing passive stretching is considered safe and can be conducted without supervision. Thus, it can easily be included in the rehabilitation process to decrease the chances of reinjury while minimizing muscle atrophy.

The stretching program principles for injury rehabilitation and prevention (table 12.2) are the same as those prescribed to improve muscle strength. Training with higher volumes of stretching could be done all at once or in intervals throughout the day. Either way, these sessions should be completed multiple days per week. During supervised sessions, exercises may be performed with assisted help such as proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching. If unsupervised, passive stretching should be performed. Static stretching, whether assisted or unassisted, is a form of passive eccentric training that puts more tension on the muscle through the lengthening phase of contraction. This becomes important in situations where a limb is immobilized, such as during a prolonged illness or recovery from surgery. During these instances an individual may have limited access to strength training equipment or be unable to undergo strength training. In such cases, incorporating stretch-mediated hypertrophy training using static stretching can help reduce muscle atrophy. Additionally, fragile individuals who are hesitant to engage in strength training may be more willing to participate in stretching exercises.

More Excerpts From Stretching Anatomy-4th Edition

---