If you’re anything like the average person, you probably devote time to stretching, either before or after training.
For most, post workout stretching is almost essential. Throughout the years, stretching has been accepted as a way to reduce your injury risk, enhance exercise performance, and alleviate muscle soreness after strength training.
Stretching is used by so many people in the belief that it reduces the risk of strains and sprains, it’s uncommon to hear anyone query its importance. Yet, notwithstanding virtually widespread acceptance, there exists almost no proof showing that stretching ahead of exercise has any impact on injury risk.
The notion that stretching eliminates lactic acid in muscles illustrates 2 of the largest fitness myths going. Specifically, that it is a “waste product” that causes muscle fatigue, and that it leads to the soreness you experience in your muscles the day or two following a challenging training session.
The majority of people, regardless of whether they’ve entered a health club, already know about lactic acid. It’s likely that you have been told that it accumulates in your muscles whenever you exercise, brings about that painful “burning” sensation, and ultimately makes your muscles give up.
Truth is, far from being a waste product, lactic acid is actually a supply of fuel for your muscles. Actually, one reason that intense training helps you perform harder and longer is that it makes your muscles better at utilizing lactic acid.The notion that lactic acid is bad is one of the classic errors in the history of science.
How about the concept that lactic acid triggers muscle soreness?
Lactic acid has absolutely nothing to do with DOMS. In fact, most of the lactic acid has disappeared from your muscles soon after exercise, whether or not you choose to do any stretching.
How come your muscles get sore a day or two after training?
A bout of unaccustomed or unusually rigorous exercise leads to inflammation – the exact same natural protection mechanism that causes the redness, swelling and pain if you cut your skin.
Inflammation is your body’s response to damage so helping to commence the whole process of repair and healing. And one of the steps in this process is an increase in the production of immune cells, which reach a peak 24-48 hours after activity.
These cells then manufacture chemical compounds that make pain receptors inside your body – which are responsible for the transmission of certain pain signals – more sensitive.
The outcome?
When you move, these pain receptors are stimulated. Since they are far more responsive to pain than usual, you find yourself feeling sore.
On a relevant note, I ought to also point out that post-exercise stretching doesn’t seem to do much in so far as muscle soreness is involved.
When a group of New Zealand investigators analyzed a variety of muscle soreness studies, they discovered that stretching after training led to an average reduction in post-exercise pain of just two percent – an outcome that’s likely to end up of “no practical significance” for most people.
Of course, this does not mean that you mustn’t perform any post workout stretching. However, if you’re only doing so because you’ve been assured that stretching removes lactic acid in muscles, or that it’s going to minimize muscle soreness, there’s minimal evidence to demonstrate that it makes any genuine difference.


