Originally Posted by
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.
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.
There's no evidence that not stretching causes you harm, especially bad enough to need pt.
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
I am a science writer in Vancouver, Canada. I was a Registered Massage Therapist for a decade, and the assistant editor of
Science-Based Medicine from 2009–2016. I am middle-aged runner and ultimate player with lots of my own athletic injuries and chronic pain.
Full bio.