The effects of short-duration static stretching of the lower extremities after warm-up exercise on endurance running performance

Abstract

Previous studies have concluded that static stretching impairs running economy and endurance running performance. However these studies examined long durations (90-120 seconds for one muscle) of static stretching. Another study reported that most athletes perform static stretching of each muscle for less than 20 seconds in their warm-up. The purpose of this study was to clarify the influence of 20-second static stretches of the lower extremities after 15 minutes warm-up on endurance running performance. Seven healthy well-trained middle or long distance male runners (age 21.3 ± 2.1 years; height 170.3 ± 3.1 centimeters; weight 60.0 ± 5.5 kilograms) took part in the present study. Each subject ran on a treadmill at 90% VO₂max until exhaustion after one of two warm-up procedures. The two warm-up procedures were 15 minutes running at 70% VO₂max (Warm-up) and 15 minutes running at 70% VO₂max plus five static stretches of the lower extremities (Warm-up + static stretching). The running performance was evaluated by time to exhaustion. In the results, there were no significant differences in time to exhaustion among the warm-up exercises (Warm-up: 819.3 ± 230.6 sec., Warm-up + static stretching 817.9 ± 213.7 sec.). These results suggested that endurance running performance was not affected by the presence or absence of 20-second static stretches and there may be no need to avoid static stretches before endurance running if the duration is not too long.