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Stretching and massage don't help muscles

Orphia
Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
in Debate Club
"Stretching Does Not Prevent or Treat DOMS (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness)

Reviews of the scientific literature show that stretching neither prevents nor treats DOMS (Cochrane Database Syst Rev, July 6, 2011;(7):CD004577; Br J Sports Med. 2011;45:1249-1250).

It did not prevent the muscle damage induced rise in plasma-CK, muscle pain, muscle strength and the PCr/P(I) ratio (Scand J Med Sci Sports, Aug, 1998;8(4):216–21).

Stretching does not:
• prevent sports injuries (Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine, March 2005)
• prevent DOMS (Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, 2007, Issue 4)
• lengthen muscles (Clinical Biomechanics, June 2014;29(6):636-642). It only increases pain tolerance so you can stretch further.

Other Unproven Treatments for DOMS
Massage: Some studies show that massage decreases pain, but nobody has shown convincingly that massage hastens muscle recovery or increases contraction strength (J Athl Train, 2005 Jul-Sep; 40(3): 174–180).
Massage did not hasten short or long-term recovery and was less effective for recovery than light exercise (J Orthop Sports Phys Ther, Feb 1997;25(2):107–12).
[...]"
Source:
https://www.drmirkin.com/fitness/making-muscles-stronger.html


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Source:
http://semrc.blogs.latrobe.edu.au/running-myth-2-not-stretching-enough-causes-injury/


Personally, I've found that stretching or manually manipulating muscles makes them hurt (people say it feels like a good pain), however...

After the "good pain" stops, you only feel "better" because:

A. You're just relieved the pain from the stretch/massage is over;
B. You feel nice from the attention you or the masseur has given you;
C. The placebo effect (you'd hate to admit you were kidding yourself any of this helps).


Now let's see who just reads the thread title and only posts a gut reaction based on their belief in myths from articles from fitness companies selling stretching/massage programs/services.
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Replies

  • Keto_Vampire
    Keto_Vampire Posts: 1,670 Member
    edited April 2019
    Wait, what, so lat pullovers don't expand one's ribcage/physically alter one's skeletal structure like broscientists/golden era bodybuilders claim? (joking)

    If anything, Isometric holds in the form of stretching generally impede performance if done pre-exercise (try it out, I guarantee all your lifts will go to ****). Besides the one's you mentioned, counter irritant effect seems like a possibility why people feel like stretching relieves pain
  • magnusthenerd
    magnusthenerd Posts: 1,207 Member
    Keto_Vampire wrote: »
    Wait, what, so lat pullovers don't expand one's ribcage/physically alter one's skeletal structure like broscientists/golden era bodybuilders claim? (joking)

    If anything, Isometric holds in the form of stretching generally impede performance if done pre-exercise. Besides the one's you mentioned, counter irritant effect seems like a possibility why people feel like stretching relieves pain

    Stop reminding me of my ruined dreams. Arnie said if I did my pullovers as a growing boy, I'd have the same 50ish inch chest he did.
    By the time I learned better I was too old to sleep with the ~100+ lb of weights on my chest it would take to even begin to alter bones. Oh well.
  • RunsWithBees
    RunsWithBees Posts: 1,508 Member
    edited April 2019
    Question: is foam rolling considered a massage or stretching, or is it it’s own special thing? Because I’ve found stretching to be useless to me, massage is nice but yea doesn’t really help muscles... but foam rolling does the trick and I was super skeptical when I tried it but it works for me, no one can seem to concretely explain why though.
  • JBanx256
    JBanx256 Posts: 1,471 Member
    The Influence of Foam Rolling on Recovery from Exercise-Induced Muscle Damage. D’Amico and Gillis. (2017)

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=28902111

    Foam rolling did not improve most measures of recovery compared to a non-foam rolling group in the days following high volume and damaging sprinting exercise.

    -quote from MASS research review
  • JBanx256
    JBanx256 Posts: 1,471 Member
    An Evidence-Based Approach for Choosing Post-Exercise Recovery Techniques to Reduce Markers of Muscle Damage, Soreness, Fatigue, and Inflammation: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. Dupuy et al. (2018)

    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.00403/full

  • Phirrgus
    Phirrgus Posts: 1,894 Member
    JBanx256 wrote: »
    An Evidence-Based Approach for Choosing Post-Exercise Recovery Techniques to Reduce Markers of Muscle Damage, Soreness, Fatigue, and Inflammation: A Systematic Review with Meta-Analysis. Dupuy et al. (2018)

    https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fphys.2018.00403/full

    This makes sense to me RE: Active recovery, especially this bit.
    Active recovery (AR) had a similar effect to CWT on DOMS (but with a larger effect size) with no impact on perceived fatigue. The effect of AR after exhaustive exercise on DOMS has been known for more than 30 years (Armstrong, 1984). However, the impact of AR is only significant during a short period after exercise (Zainuddin et al., 2006).

    I've always stretched because that's what I was taught to do over the years, and while the regimen has had a dramatic impact on keeping my lower back from guarding and giving me general grief, stretching overall never seemed to impact much pre or post workout. I did it though, force of habit.

    A short AR period after workouts, all dynamic stretching, seems to do me a world of good though, so, even if it's strictly a placebo effect, I'll keep doing it.
  • Motorsheen
    Motorsheen Posts: 20,492 Member
    edited April 2019
    Keto_Vampire wrote: »

    [ Isometric holds in the form of stretching generally impede performance if done pre-exercise (try it out, I guarantee all your lifts will go to ****).


    trooth.



    .
  • mom23mangos
    mom23mangos Posts: 3,070 Member
    I do an active warmup going through range of motion in joints before working out. For DOMS, I do light cardio...walking, roller skating, swimming. I do active and passive stretching to obtain full range of motion in my joints. Mobility is pretty important to me. I do active stretching followed by strength sets of the antagonistic muscle to lock in range of motion. I usually do this after working out when my muscles are already warm. I do static passive stretching to hit the connective tissue and usually do that cold.

    If you already have full ROM, mobility work including stretching is not needed. And if you are hypermobile, it probably does more harm than good. For people like me who have to fight for ROM, it helps. It has nothing to do with DOMS or injury prevention however. Well, OK somewhat with injury prevention because if you don't have full ROM, things are likely going to get jacked.
  • mph323
    mph323 Posts: 3,565 Member
    I do regular stretching for flexibility, but not for recovery (although I often do my flexibility stretching routine after aerobic exercise because I feel more, well, flexible at that point :) ). My understanding of the results of current studies is that stretching (and foam rolling, icing and other common recovery routines) can be useful between events for those doing multiple efforts in one day (like track runners doing several qualifying heats before the final race), but agree that the current thought is that recovery happens on it's own with adequate rest and nutrition.

    I just finished reading this book: "Good to Go, What the Athlete in All of Us Can Learn from the Strange Science of Recovery", by Christie Aschwanden, and interestingly, her conclusiions after a deep dive into actual studies and interviews with various experts tracks right along with the OP.

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