Best stretching protocols for runners
Have you ever wondered what type of stretching you can do before your run, after your run and on rest days? Do you stretch your hamstrings on a lower wall, take your ankle and stretch your quadriceps, just before your run starts? It seems that this is not the right way to do it. It depends on the moment of stretching, and the reason why you want to stretch, amongst other variables.
If you want to do a warm-up before doing an exercise, dynamic and ballistic stretching are the way to go. In fact, in that case static stretching can have a negative effect on the muscles. If you want to increase the flexibility of the joints, then static stretching is highly beneficial.
But first back to the basics. What is stretching actually and what is the goal? What is the difference between dynamic and static stretching? And what are some specific stretching protocols that you can use as of today? Let’s find out.
Stretching explained
What is stretching?
Stretching is an exercise in which a muscle purposefully is being flexed or stretched. The goal of this exercise is to improve your flexibility, range of motion, your performance, and/or to prepare the muscles for future impact.
A lot of material that you find online focuses on the goal to improve muscle flexibility. Flexibility is crucial for physical movements and can help prevent injuries, decrease inflammation, regulate physical and mental pain, and impact exercise recovery speed.
However, and we will get to that point when talking about types of stretching, stretching can also be used to ‘activate’ the muscles. With that activation I mean to prepare the muscle (group) for the movement that will be done after the stretching.
You decrease the chances of instability and let the right muscles know that they need to start working.
The physiology of stretching
Let’s briefly look at it in a more biological mechanic way. There are three major components that are involved in the stretching of muscles: 1) neurons, 2) connective tissue / fascia, and 3) muscles.
Neurons
Your nervous system controls your muscles; it gets your muscles to contract. Neurons (i.e. the lower motor neurons in your spinal cord) send a wire out to your muscles. Those neurons release a chemical and this causes the muscle to contract.
Fascia
When muscles contract, you are able to move your limbs, by changing the length of the muscles, hence adjusting the function of the connective tissue (fascia). Fascia surrounds and is intertwined into the muscles and neurons. It is a tissue that holds everything together and allows flexibility to occur.
Muscles
Within the muscle, there are sensory neurons that are wrapped around the muscle fibers. These neurons sense the level of stretch of the muscle fibers. They sense what is going on in the muscle.
When a muscle is being stretched (too far), these signals are being sent back by the sensory neurons to the motor neurons in the spine, which causes the muscle to contract. This brings the limb range of motion into a ‘safe’ range again.
Types of stretching
Now that you know the basics of stretching, let’s focus on the different types of stretching. There are actually four commonly accepted types of stretching: dynamic, ballistic, static and PNF stretching.
Dynamic stretching: this involves some degree of momentum, ranging your limbs in a more controlled way compared to ballistic stretching.
Ballistic stretching: this type tends to be more swinging of the limb, towards a higher use of momentum, compared to the dynamic stretching.
Static stretching: you hold the end range of motion (end position) for some time, hence minimizing the amount of momentum that’s used. That is a very controlled way of stretching.
PNF stretching: PNF stands for Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation. One stretches a muscle (group) and puts quite some tension on it. Then you contract the muscles shortly, while another person or object applies sufficient resistance to inhibit movement.
Best type of stretching for runners
Now comes the question: what is the best type of stretching for runners? And that can only be answered if you first determine your goal.
If you are looking to stretch your limbs just after your warmup and before your core workout, in order to activate them for the workout, then dynamic and ballistic stretching are greatly effective.
If you want to increase your flexibility and range of motion in the long term, static stretching appears to be the most effective. Incorporate your stretching sessions when you design your training schedule.
Dynamic & ballistic stretching
Pre-run static stretching is not useful for performance gains and definitely useless when it comes to injury prevention.
The “why” behind the routine: most of us runners are people who sit at our computers all day. When we get the opportunity to go for a run, we want to be sure our bodies are awake and ready.
This protocol helps you activate your glute and calve muscles, develop some body awareness, and encourage good posture, so he or she can start a run feeling good and keep that feeling going.
You can incorporate the stretching sessions into your interval runs or long runs.
Protocol of dynamic & ballistic stretching
Warm-up
Start your workout with an easy warm-up run of 10 minutes.
Examples of dynamic stretching exercises
Leg swings (front): helps gain flexibility in hamstrings and hip flexors
Leg swings (side): helps to open your hips
High knees: helps to stretch out your glutes
But kicks: helps to increase acceleration and speed
Workout
Perform your core run after you have finished the stretching.
Cooldown
Take 10 minutes to cool down (optionally include static stretching).
Static stretching
I will focus more on static stretching here, as there is a ton of information and nuances when it comes to PNF stretching. But PNF is a very effective way for flexibility purposes. The static stretching is just a bit more straightforward and tends to be most effective.
Once more, the Huberman Lab Podcast has given me a lot of insights in the topic of stretching, and more specifically towards the protocols of effective static stretching. Based on science, dr. Huberman provides answers to questions like how often to stretch, how long to stretch, how hard to stretch, when to stretch, and so forth. Here’s an outline.
Protocol of static stretching
Static stretching can be done on a rest day, after a workout that was not too intensive, or after a workout by stretching muscle groups that were not highly affected. Reason for that is that a workout already brings damage to several muscle groups.
It creates small cracks in the muscle fibers that will be repaired by the body afterwards. If you would stretch the heavily damaged muscles, you’re creating more stress on them, which has the opposite effect.
Here is a science based protocol to improve your limb range of motion in the long term. To make it specific, let’s say you want to improve your hamstring flexibility.
Warm-up
Warm-up to raise your core body temperature before stretching.
Examples of static stretching exercises
Simple Hamstring Stretch: Sit on the floor with both legs out straight. Extend your arms and reach forward by bending at the waist as far as possible while keeping your knees straight.
Standing Hamstring Stretch (Both Legs): Stand and cross your right foot in front of your left. Slowly lower your forehead to your right knee by bending at the waist. Keep both knees straight.
Standing Forward Bend: Stand up straight with your arms overhead. Fold forward from the hips, reaching your hands toward the floor. Your hips should be stacked over your ankles. Touching your toes is not the goal of this stretch. Only go as far as you can without overly bending your knees.
Duration of stretch
Hold each stretch for 30 seconds.
Holding the stretch for more than 30 seconds does not seem to be more beneficial.
Duration of rest
Rest in between the stretches for 30-60 seconds.
Taking some rest to offload the stretch on the muscles is important.
Number of sets
Stretch the hamstrings 3 to 4 times.
More than 4 repetitions of stretching is not desirable.
Frequency
Stretch the hamstrings at a minimum of 5 days per week.
Study shows that you cannot put the stretching workout in one day, to quickly get results. It does seem important that the frequency of stretching is distributed throughout the week. However, 5 days a week requires quite some commitment.
Hence, alternatively you could hold the stretches for 60 seconds instead of 30. As a result of this longer workout, you could do with fewer total sessions per week (e.g. every other day).
Intensity
Stretch at a very low intensity of 30-40% (where 100% equals the point of pain).
Very low-intensity static stretching (effort that does not feel painful) is more effective than moderate-intensity stretching when you want to increase the limb range of motion.
Other muscle groups
I can imagine that – within the same workout – you would stretch other muscle groups as well to be more efficient. The same protocol applies here.
I hope this blog gives you an overview of which types of stretching can be good for you. If you want to get inspired by other runners, take a look at this blog. Good luck!
