A top fitness expert says stretching before or after any exercise is useless and can even slow you down

Despite what you’ve heard, stretching before a workout won’t make you more flexible – and stretching afterwards won’t make your muscles less sore, experts have revealed.

According to Professor Kieran O’Sullivan, who researches musculoskeletal pain at the University of Limerick, the 10 minutes you spend flexing those hamstrings is essentially useless – and can even cause damage.

For the average person doing moderate exercise, ‘the value of stretching compared to other exercise becomes much less,’ says Professor O’Sullivan.

This is because research has shown that stretching has little impact on muscle fibers beyond exercise alone. Even walking can be enough to reduce the risk of strain and injury.

Khloe Kardashian has become known for her fitness journey and even hosted a reality show about the process called ‘Revenge Body’.

Stretching works by temporarily reducing the amount of blood and oxygen flowing to your muscles, said professor Judy Delp, who teaches biomedical sciences at Florida State University College of Medicine. TIME.

This deficiency is said to motivate the body’s cells to deliver excess blood and nutrients to the muscle fibers, making them better able to cope with the impact of exercise.

But the evidence for these benefits is somewhat limited, professor Nicolas Babault, physiology of exercise at the University of Burgundy, told TIME.

Additionally, it doesn’t appear that stretching after a workout will improve muscle soreness in the coming days, according to a 2011 review of twelve studies on the subject by researchers from the United Kingdom. non-profit Cochrane.

This is in direct contrast to what fitness influencers and celebrities, like Khloe Kardashian, talk about their routines.

Some experts say that movements that involve dynamic stretching – such as squats and walking lunges – are useful, but that traditional forms should be left behind.

Kardashian trainer Joel Bouraima recently revealed that Khloé’s workout routine always starts with at least thirty minutes of stretching as a “warm-up.”

Folding over to touch your toes before or after a workout may make you feel like you’re becoming more flexible, but what you’re actually feeling is your body relaxing, said Professor Kieran O’Sullivan.

These positions are called static stretches and involve holding positions for long periods of time while breathing, Leigh-Ann Bramble Bramble physiotherapist from the Hospital for Special Surgery’s Sports Rehabilitation and Performance Center, said.

But some studies have shown that holding these positions for long periods of time can make it harder to gain speed — and can even hurt.

‘Using static stretching during a warm-up before an athletics competition can negatively impact your performance. This is because static stretching can limit your body’s ability to respond quickly,” she said.

Some trainers say that if any movement can make a difference in muscle soreness, it’s dynamic stretching. These stretches are repetitive movements that together activate muscles, joints and ligaments.

This includes things like torso twists, walking lunges, squats, and leg swings. These movements get blood flowing to your muscles, raising their temperature and reducing stiffness.

To actually become more flexible, you need to lengthen your muscles, which involves dynamic stretching, says Polly de Mille, an exercise physiologist at Hospital for special surgerysaid.

Extension only happens if you do it consistently for months and years, in routines such as with dancers or gymnasts. You can also incorporate things like foam rolling into your routine to help promote it, Ms. de Mille said.

But if you just want to make sure you stay within a healthy range of mobility, then a little walking activity every day should be enough, Professor Delp said.

“If you walk regularly and move your joints through that range of motion, you are stretching without even realizing it,” Delp said.

This is more than enough for most people, says professor Timothy Caulfield, who teaches health law and science policy at the University of Alberta. Professor Caufield shared in a response to X that he is doing fine, even though he hasn’t stretched in 15 years.

‘”…stretching before or after your workout has little impact on muscle soreness over the next few days…” Agreed. I haven’t stretched in 15 years! #Move,” Caufield wrote.