“I stretch until the cows come home, so why am i still injured?”
The obvious answer to the question would be that stretching is not the answer to your recovery! Of course you need to understand what your injury is before choosing the right tools for rehabilitation (essentially what this website is designed for!).
If stretching IS what you need, there is also a less obvious answer which is predominantly overlooked by most runners, coaches and therapists. If i ask you how you stretch you may well say that you stretch each muscle for about 20-30 seconds, gently, allowing your body to accomodate to the stretch. That sounds great! But you know what? It’s not the best way to stretch.
No-one is completely symmetrical (at least in my 12 years of practice i’ve never seen someone completely symmetrical) so, for example, we find that we can stretch one hamstring more easily than the other.
The thing is that by stretching both sides for the same amount of time and intensity we are actually PERPETUATING THE IMBALANCE, since the tight side gets a little looser, and the loose side gets even looser!
As a rule of thumb i recommend that with every muscle group that we stretch, we stretch the tighter side 3 times more than the looser side. That could be that we stretch the tight side 3×30 seconds versus 1×30 seconds on the loose side. Or it could be that we stretch the tight side for 90 seconds versus 30 seconds on the other side. Both methods work well.
Do this ratio of stretching on each muscle group until the imbalances have ironed out (may take weeks – be patient!) and you can then stretch equally both sides.
Happy stretching!
Gavin
