Stretching is not the first thing people have in mind when thinking about muscle and strength.
The importance of stretching in general is often debated as well.
Even on this channel, I’ve pointed out the use of stretching for certain cases, like
improving muscle soreness or preventing injuries, has been largely shown to be ineffective.
It doesn’t mean that stretching has no use, but like most things, the type of stretching
you do should be specifically relevant to your goals instead of randomly contorting
your body just to feel that burning stretch sensation on the bottom half of your pinky
finger.
All jokes aside, a new study on static stretching produced some very interesting findings.
If it checks out, then my sentiments on stretching might need amending and pinky gains won’t
be much of a joke after all.
So, in this video, we’re going to stretch our brains out a bit and find out what this
2023 study entails.
The study researchers recruited 55 participants, 28 males and 27 females, that had at least
1 year of ongoing strength training experience.
For six weeks, participants performed a daily plantar flexor stretch, or calf stretch, of
their dominant leg, They were instructed to hold this stretch,
aided by a calf-stretching orthosis, for 1 uninterrupted hour each day.
The goal was to see what this daily hour of static stretching had in three different outcomes:
One, range of motion, which is not too surprising to measure in a stretch-based study.
But two and three, which you’re more likely interested in, are the outcomes on muscle
strength and muscle hypertrophy.
Additionally, the goal was to compare the differences in outcomes between males and
females.
So, what did they find?
RESULTS First, range of motion.
Both males and females improved ankle range of motion of their dominant leg in the two
flexibility assessments performed, but improvements were statistically significantly higher in
males.
This might be partly attributed to males starting at a lower baseline range of motion, giving
them more room for improvement.
Still, both groups noticeably improved.
Muscle strength, as measured by isometric maximal voluntary contractions in both straight
and bent-knee calf exercises, improved in both groups.
For the straight-knee strength test, however, males had a higher 15.5 percent increase in
strength compared to a lower but notable 8.7 percent increase in females.
Muscle hypertrophy, as measured by muscle thickness in two sites of the gastrocnemius,
the larger calf muscle, once more increased in both sexes.
Males, again, had a statistically significantly higher 14.5 percent average growth increase
compared to the 4.2 percent increase in females for one of the calf sites measured.
Overall, the results showed that static stretching the calf for 1 hour each day for six weeks
increased range of motion, strength, and muscle growth in both males and females, with typically
higher increases in males.
So, how does this happen?
Stretching leading to actual gains?
The researchers currently hypothesize that stretching, much like resistance training,
or lifting weights, creates a mechanical load of the muscle, causing structural damage of
the muscle fibers.
This damage then signals anabolic pathways leading to muscle protein synthesis, a process
that drives muscle growth.
They also speculate that the less flexible and stiffer a muscle is, the higher the mechanical
stimulus created.
The male participants in the study typically had lower flexibility than the female participants,
which might explain the strength and muscle growth differences between the two groups,
as stimulation was likely higher for males.
Keep in mind, that these are currently just speculations, and no current research has
directly investigated these mechanisms.
But in any case, what do the results of this study ultimately mean for our training?
The findings here potentially opens up a whole new approach to muscle and strength development,
especially if the hypotheses are supported in the future.
But let’s not get too ahead of ourselves just yet, since as always, we shouldn’t
make drastic changes to our plans based on a single study.
That said, this study is actually not the first study the researchers did on this topic.
In fact, this study further supported the findings of their previous work, so there
is a level of consistency here, which is exactly what we want to see in science.
Still, if we take the results simply at face value, there is the bigger dilemma of practicality.
Adding one hour of stretching every day is probably not feasible for a lot of gym goers.
For most, one hour at the gym every day is all they have, if not less than that.
Plus, we only know that this works for the calf muscles.
No current data suggest it can apply to muscles universally.
Using stretching as an alternative to resistance training is also off the table since again,
we lack any data suggesting that it can be just as effective as something like lifting
weights.
It would be cool to see data on how they would perform together, though, but again, time
would be a big issue.
At best, this might be useful for improving lagging muscles and imbalances.
If you wanna deal with your perpetually small calves, which I know you do, stretching them
out at home for an hour while you watch 521 TikTok videos might be worth trying.
The researchers did mention something, however, where the findings of this study can have
profoundly amazing application, which I am in complete agreement.
And that is: rehabilitation.
If stretching does indeed stimulate muscle and strength, then it can be a great injury
recovery tool.
Especially for injuries that limit joint stress and muscle loading, stretching can be a relatively
low stress and low load stopgap for developing atrophied muscles until more rigorous therapy
exercise can be safely performed.
In that sense, quite a big win for stretching.
At the end of the day, based on the results, I probably won’t be going out of my way
to excessively increase my ROM for the sake of my 1RM.
But, with this new information, my personal thoughts on stretching definitely stretched
out a bit and I’ll be more flexible with recommending it in the future.
But resistance training is still king.
If you enjoyed this video, please give it a flexible thumbs up and share it with your
stretch-loving friends.
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As always, thank you for watching and don’t forget to get your protein.