Increase Flexibility, Decrease Performance?

Good morning,

In today's post we are going to deviate from the traditional path of gear reviews and such. Let's move over to a subject related to performance, flexibility. My goal with this edition is simply to challenge the status quo. If you have some additional research, I would be open-minded to receiving it.

How many of you have heard that if you increased your flexibility, you will perform at a higher level. I think most of us have heard this our whole life.

A couple years ago, I went down to the University of Minnesota to talk with a PHD on staff. And one of the subjects that came up was the value of traditional stretching in human performance. She said that she did not believe that the use of stretching would increase performance. The use of a dynamic warm-up and participating in your sport would produce the necessary flexibility. I almost fell off my chair!! It seemed almost Un-American to say that stretching or increased flexibility would not improve your performance.

Then 2 months ago, I came across the following post, "Running Economy: Increased joint flexibility may damage your distance running performance" Click here.

Let me know your thoughts.

Have a great weekend.


Stephen McCarthy
Gear and Training
"Attacking Life and Sport Since 2001"