Sport Stretches may be a waste
By Victoria Button
Medical Reporter
The Age Newspaper, Melbourne
Friday 26 November 1999

School of F.M. Alexander Studies, 330 St Georges Road, North Fitzroy, Victoria, 3068 Australia. Tel: 61 3 9486 5900

Millions of people worldwide who stretch before sport in the hope of preventing injury are wasting their time, according to groundbreaking Australian research.

In what are believed to be the world's first controlled trials on the subject - conducted on more than 2500 Australian Army recruits - researchers concluded stretching was futile. They found no clinically significant difference in bone or muscle injury rates between recruits randomly assigned to platoons that stretched before physical training and those that did not.

However, they found fitter and younger recruits were less likely to get injured than their older or less fit peers.

The army has abandoned its protocol of always stretching before exercise as a result of the research. So has one of the researchers, a physiotherapist, Mr Rod Pope, who jogs.

The research - conducted by Mr Pope, from the Physiotherapy Department of Kapooka Medical Company, and researchers from Charles Sturt University and the University of Sydney - has been accepted for publication by the journal of the American College of Sports Medicine, Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise.

"There's every indication stretching before exercise is a waste of time," Mr Pope said yesterday. "But I'm not ruling out the need for stretching at all. You probably need it where people have excessively tight muscle."

Sports medicine experts responding to the results admitted being unaware of any scientific basis for the stretches they recommended athletes perform.

The physiotherapist for the Australian cricket team, Mr Errol Alcott, said he had long harbored doubts about whether stretching helped prevent injury. "Injuries come and injuries go whether you stretch or don't stretch... You never see a leopard or tiger or cheetah stretching before it runs down the plain."

He was not aware of any evidence stretching prevented injury, but noted it was so universally accepted by players that no professional team would agree to abandon it - even for a trial. Mr Alcott added stretching also helped team-building, mental preparation and increasing joint movement range.

The AFL Medical Officers Association president, Dr Hugh Seward, said stretching was an integral part of the sport but all new evidence would be reviewed: "It's so long it's been an accepted practice, I'm not sure of the scientific evidence for it."

The chairwoman of the national SportSafe program, Associate Professor Caroline Finch, described the new research as significant.

While at least one American animal study supported the benefits of stretching, there was a lack of evidence on the area in humans.

However, she advised people to continue with their normal stretches before sport until further evidence became available.

"There's enough evidence it doesn't do any harm," she said.

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School for F.M. Alexander Studies
330 St. Georges Road
North Fitzroy (corner Holden Street)
Victoria, Australia
Tel: 61 3 9486 5900