Lemond1985

To be prudent, I would wait for an Okay on that first, from from the guy in the white labcoat (who hasn't ridden a bike since the third grade and still wets the bed). Or risk permanent injury. For gosh sakes, at least wait until all the various studies are in.

79pmooney

I do long, slow stretches for my Achilles and hamstrings every morning. (I partially tore both Achi8lles and have dealt with chrondomalcia patallae (CP) he past 40 years.) The trick to doing it without injury is to take a lot of time and go slow. (I have a routine - I grind my morning coffee on a small Japanese burr grinder; about 360 turns. Stretch the whole time.) On these morning stretches, I never stretch to a "goal" (like can I reach the floor?). I just stretch steadily against the resistance and wherever that ends up doesn't matter.

During a ride, if I feel my knees, I will stop and do a much quicker stretch for my hamstrings. (Riding with CP knees and tight hamstrings is like running your car engine without oil.)

Edit: if you are prone to CP and don't stretch, you could get the reminder call that you should have stretched your hamstrings, kept your knees warmer and/or built up your training slower. That reminder isn't fun. If you get it, you will be subject to CP for the rest of the life of your knees. I got the call the winter after my head injury as I built my conditioning to race again. Went for a cold March century with just tights and thermals on Wednesday. My knees hurt. Sunday I dropped out of the opening frostbite race because my knees hurt so much. A doctor (fellow competitor) there diagnosed me with CP and informed me that the condition was there for life.

Most people are not prone to CP. But if you are - 1) you will not know it in advance and 2) that first encounter will be life-changing (and not for the better). By contrast - keeping your hamstrings loose is pretty easy and painless.

Ben

Road Fan

Indeed! My fitness for posting on the Internet for laps of 8+ hours has become legendary in my family!

calstar 

+1 This is my pretty much my exact feeling. Flexibility and range of motion become more important as one ages(at least for me, 72yrs), especially regarding motion injuries. I strongly believe a stretching routine has allowed me to continue my chosen active life style. I stretch in the morning after I have been up and moving around for awhile. To the OP question, I do not stretch just before riding, but warm up slowly and easily; I do stretch after riding but a shorter routine than in the mornings. Different strokes...whatever floats your......etc., etc......

regards, Brian

bobwysiwyg

Just curios, why the emphasis on NOT before? Assuming some sort of warm-up.

Lemond1985

Because you can damage muscle fibers by forcing cold muscles to stretch (don't ask how I discovered this). Or forcing a warmed-up muscle too far beyond its accustomed-to range.

Assuming a warm-up, in my mind that would put those stretches in the "during" phase. I might do a quick easy quad, calf, or hamstring stretch before getting on the bike, but nothing sustained or intense. It's not rocket surgery, just listen to your body, even an animal knows when he's hurting himself, though a "cannibal" might not.

Sapperc

Static Stretching, and other exercises that stretch the body are most definitely useful in that done properly and routinely they promote flexibility. Does anyone really think cyclists cannot benifit from increased flexibility?

One certainly does not need to stretch or perform other types of physical training just to enjoy cycling, but neither should one dismiss the advantages of a well rounded physical workout regime.

Machka 

We are not supposed to stretch "cold" muscles.

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-l...g/art-20047931

There are several tips in the article linked above, but this one, in particular, applies here:

Use these tips to keep stretching safe:

Don't consider stretching a warmup. You may hurt yourself if you stretch cold muscles. Before stretching, warm up with light walking, jogging or biking at low intensity for five to 10 minutes. Even better, stretch after your workout when your muscles are warm.

Consider skipping stretching before an intense activity, such as sprinting or track and field activities. Some research suggests that pre-event stretching may actually decrease performance. Research has also shown that stretching immediately before an event weakens hamstring strength.

Instead of static stretching, try performing a "dynamic warmup." A dynamic warm-up involves performing movements similar to those in your sport or physical activity at a low level, then gradually increasing the speed and intensity as you warm up.


Also:
https://wwws.fitnessrepublic.com/fit...-debunked.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/a...rrated/376089/

https://www.painscience.com/articles/stretching.php

u235

I stretch various leg parts at random times but nothing related to the timing of my regular exercise or bike riding. It just feels good sometimes. My pre workout stretching is done as part of my workout, starting my rides a little slow and gradually building up. It's actually kind of funny, at about the 3 minute point I am thinking what the hell, this sucks, no way I can go 40 miles but at the 7 minute point that wears off as my HR builds and at 10-15 minutes I am feeling fresh and going full bore. It's the same when I do strength training. I have to do at least 15 minutes of gradually increasing cardio first. Call it what you want but that's my "stretching".

BikingTech

No traditional stretches for me. I just take the first 1.5-2 mi easy then pick it up depending on the ride.

50PlusCycling

Absolutely, both before and after a ride. Pre-ride stretches help prevent injuries, and post-ride stretches help recovery.

Machka 

From that last link ...

SUMMARY
Stretching just doesn’t have the effects that most people hope it does. Plentiful research has shown that it doesn’t warm you up, prevent soreness or injury, enhance peformance, or physically change muscles. Although it can boost flexibility, the value of this is unclear, and no other measurable and significant benefit to stretching has ever been proven. Regardless of efficacy, stretching is inefficient, “proper” technique is controversial at best, and many key muscles are actually biomechanically impossible to stretch — like most of the quadriceps group (which runners never believe without diagrams). If there’s any hope for stretching to be medically useful, it might be a therapeutic effect on muscle “knots” (myofascial trigger points), but even that theory is full of problems.

livedarklions

OP's question was if it was necessary, not if it should be avoided. I don't do it because it seems to give me no benefit, and it takes time I consider wasted.

If you find it helps you, do it. If you don't want to, there's no good reason to feel like you should.

I'm really responding to people who over the years have told me I'm doing it wrong when I skip it.

Garfield Cat

The bigger question that's hidden in the original post is about injuries and the long term issues related to cycling. Not particularly the competitive cycling, it includes the recreational cycling that many riders do in their lifetime.

What's another way of looking at it? Your overall health and how cycling fits in, not the other way around.

FrenchFit 

And, we have a winner. Dynamic stretching pre-work-out and at long stops, static stretching afterwards. Besides cycling I run about 6 hours a week, and without a practiced stretching routine I'd be in a wheelchair.

Of course, you can regard this as silly but I'll suggest to bank some money for your upcoming PT.

Flip Flop Rider

stretching? it's a personal choice I guess. If you think you need it do it, if not don't

before they hit the beaches at Normandy I wonder if the soldiers stretched? or if seal team 6 stretched before invading Bin Laden's house. These were important events where physical performance could make the difference between life and death

it never occurred to me to stretch before or after riding, and I also don't stretch before or after I cut grass or use a chain saw either

livedarklions

See, this is the kind of silly assertion I rebel against.

There's no evidence that not stretching causes you harm, especially bad enough to need pt.

Given how much muscles vary from person to person, would it really be shocking to find that some people get a benefit from it, and some don't?

ridelikeaturtle

Yeah, but /I feel like/ ...
... and /I believe very strongly that/...
... and /it works for me/...
... and /CATS do it!/...

You're banging your head against a wall here. You'd have more success explaining to the dog that the postman just needed to continue his route.

livedarklions

I'm perfectly willing to say that if they find it works for them, they should keep doing it. It's when they assert that someone who doesn't find that should make themselves do it or face some dire vague consequences, that I feel a need to argue.

My suspicion is very strong that whatever benefits there are to stretching, they are not evenly divided in the general population.

BTW, my cat is a terrible bicyclist.

Spoonrobot 

Everyone is running a lifelong experiment where N=1, some are good scientists and some are not. Some are also terrible at analogies and some are not.

We're not dogs, or cats or soldiers or sailors. We're cyclists, some of whom are capable of monitoring their activity, making small changes and observing the results. I don't think stretching is as effective as the hyperbole for or against that is present here. I do know that stretching allows me to ride in more comfort than not stretching, for spans up to 13.5 hours. I also know that when someone comes into my shop with certain fit issues, a stretching routine will often, but not always, help them in both their current fit or to adapt to a new fit.

I developed a serious piriformis issue that was diagnosed by a sports physiologist and resolved through a stretching routine post-ride. Before I sought medical help it was so bad I was only able to walk with the help of crutches. Long-term resolution of the issue required significant increase in the flexibility of my lower body. Scientific evidence of this made no difference to my condition. My routine was such that the only change was riding a bicycle for 1-2 hours a day at moderate to high intensity. Had I self-diagnosed I could have chased all manner of issues that weren't the problem. Seeing an expert, getting diagnosed "it's almost always a matter of flexibility and posture, one drives the other" and put on a stretching routine was the solution. I don't expect this to be a solution for everyone, no do I dismiss stretching as ineffective. As the science shows, the importance and usefulness varies greatly, a reasonable person would be well served to perform their own research and make minor changes to see if there was an improvement or not.

The most interesting thing about this thread is that the people posting for stretching are almost all posting about personal experience. The people posting against it are posting analogy, hyperbole and rhetoric with a smattering of ambivalent medical articles that do not indicate either way with any strong favor.

Painscience.com is a funny website. According to the author's bio I am much more qualified to write about physiological and kinesiological issues than he is.

https://www.painscience.com/about.php

ridelikeaturtle

That the author Paul Ingraham was an assistant editor of sciencebasedmedicine.org, that gives him massive credibility.

https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/edi...istant-editor/

livedarklions

Since you were responding in part to a quote from me, I want to point out that all I'm arguing against is telling people they have to stretch.

I don't do it because I see no benefit from it, and nothing scientific is strong enough either way to make any kind of universal pronouncement.

If it works for you, do it. If you don't want to, don't. Just don't tell other people what to do.

luevelvet

While I'm not trying to argue whether it's been noted in the research but...

I've always been a fan of reasonable stretching after work outs. I find Yoga not only stretches me out but also improves my core strength which does affect the way I'm able to position myself on my bike. It's not all just hamstrings and quad stretching, it's also about improving blood flow to the muscles, greater flexible in many other areas and mental health (you'd be surprise how Yoga and stretching affects anxiety etc).

Also, David Goggins puts a lot belief into his stretching. For those who may be interested in how it's helped him...

Milton Keynes

I've never stretched before, during, or after a ride. Just never thought about it and never found it necessary. I've managed to complete centuries without stretching, so I don't think it's anything I need to incorporate into my riding routine. But if you do want to stretch, you won't get any argument from me. You do you, I'll do me.

PaulRivers

I really screwed up my leg weightlifting. A year later if I put weight on it wrong, inside the hip I'd get a nasty "stepping on tinfoil" feeling and obviously it wasn't fixing itself.

In my search to find a fix I tried doing Limber 11 (imgur link, more info if you google it) and in 2 weeks it healed itself (I still have other issues from that injury but the internal hip pain went away):
https://imgur.com/gallery/iEsaS

This debate gets kinda messy when some people say they're "stretching" and some people imagine simple static stretches while others imagine more of a dynamic warmup.

I think one should keep in mind that studies are not "proof". It's like evidence in a criminal case, someone says they saw you at the scene of the crime, but then evidence of you in another city on 3rd party atm video comes up and they realize it wasn't you. "studies" are what was used to push anti-vacinne stuff.

"A study found that parachutes were no more effective than empty backpacks at protecting jumpers from aircraft."
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-...here-s-a-catch

With stretching I feel like it's like someone did a study on average people that showed no improvement in their healthy by removing their appendix. Well...yeah, but if your appendix is on the verge of busting that doesn't actually apply to you. I'm dubious about the benefits of static stretching but from I've learned since my injury I can see how for some people it's very beneficial, while for others it makes no difference at all.