How long should you spend on stretching exercises?

According to most surveys, lack of time is the number one reason people give for quitting their exercise programs. Some exercise professionals recommend that you do stretching exercises before and after you train.

If you're trying to squeeze exercise into your lunch hour, it's easy to spend most of your time just warming up and cooling down!

In truth, a lot of it is unnecessary.

Stretching exercises

In an attempt to establish the optimum stretching time needed to improve flexibility, researchers from the University of Arkansas examined the effects of four different stretching routines [1].

Previous studies show that stretching exercises lasting 30 seconds improve your flexibility to a greater extent than stretching exercises lasting 15 seconds. However, this group of researchers wanted to know if a 60-second stretch was any better than one lasting 30 seconds.

Subjects aged between 21 and 39 years stretched their hamstrings five days each week for six weeks. They were asked to place their heel on an elevated surface, and bend forward from the waist until they felt a "gentle stretch" in the back of their thigh.This position was held for 30-60 seconds.

Each stretching session was supervised. Anyone who missed more than four sessions was dropped from the study.

When flexibility was measured at the end of the trial, there were no differences between three 60-second stretches and one 30-second stretch. That said, all of the participants in this study were under 40 years of age. Longer stretches do appear to be more effective than shorter ones the older you get.

For example, a study carried in Physical Therapy examined the effects of stretching exercises in a group of 62 subjects aged between 65 and 97, all with "tight" hamstring muscles [3].

The results show that a 60-second stretch improved flexibility more quickly than a 30-second or 15-second stretch. What's more, participants who stretched for 60 seconds remained more flexible for longer than subjects in the other groups.

There's also evidence to show that short (10 seconds) but frequent stretches (6 times daily) are equally as effective as longer (30 seconds) stretches performed less often (twice a day) at increasing flexibility [2].

In other words, regardless of the length of a single stretch, the key to improvement is total daily stretch time.

The bottom line

The bottom line is that the length of time you spend on stretching exercises depends on your goals. One stretch lasting 30 seconds is just as effective as three stretches lasting 60 seconds. That doesn't mean you can't stretch for longer than 30 seconds - just that you don't have to.

Because total stretch time appears to be more important than the length of a single stretch for increasing flexibility, stretching your muscles while you rest between sets or exercises is one simple way to save time. However, stretching exercises do have the potential to reduce maximal strength. This means you need to be careful about the amount of time spent stretching if you're also training to get stronger.

Finally, remember that stretching exercises are not the only way to improve your flexibility, and they're certainly not as important for injury prevention as some people would like you to believe.

References
1. Bandy, W.D., Irion, J.M., & Briggler, M. (1997). The effect of time and frequency of static stretching on flexibility of the hamstring muscles. Physical Therapy, 77, 1090-1096
2. Cipriani, D., Abel, B., & Pirrwitz, D. (2003). A comparison of two stretching protocols on hip range of motion: implications for total daily stretch duration. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 17, 274-278
3. Feland, J.B., Myrer, J.W., Schulthies, S.S., Fellingham, G.W., & Measom, G.W. (2001). The effect of duration of stretching of the hamstring muscle group for increasing range of motion in people aged 65 years or older. Physical Therapy, 81, 1110-1117