Static vs Dynamic Stretching: What the Evidence Really Says

[0:00] All right, we’re back. Another day, another podcast, right? Stretch before you work out or you’ll tear a muscle. Right. No. Or else I would have torn my Achilles just walking up the stairs today. Okay. Well, today we’re going to talk about stretching, what works, what’s nonsense, and whether your yoga instructor is secretly trying to kill you. They are. What happens when a chiropractor and a physical therapist get together to make a health and wellness podcast? But chiropractors and physical therapists don’t like each other. Oh, think again.

[0:30] I’m Dr. Kathy Lynch, physical therapist who likes to help people move and get stronger. I’m Dr. Jason Young, an evidence-based chiropractor who uses humor just as much as adjustments to help people get better. Welcome to the PTCH Podcast. Remember, there’s no “I” in PTCH. Okay. Well, yeah. Hopefully we haven’t — we don’t have a mob of yoga instructors out there with their yoga mats rolled up ready to assault us when we leave today. But I want to welcome everybody and introduce our

[1:00] topic today. It is stretching. Everyone does it, but so many people have the wrong idea about it. Today we’re going to be relying heavily on the expertise of Dr. Kathy Lynch as she sets the record straight on why stretching is not a cure-all, but it’s still important. Okay. So stick around, watch the episode, listen to the episode, and we’re going to be playing a game at the end. I call it “Stretching the Truth.” We’re going to test Kathy’s ability to identify fake

[1:32] studies on stretching. All right. Yes, I’m sure you do. Right. So what we want to do is jump right into it. We’re going to go through a few myths about stretching and just want to give you the floor to kind of set the record straight. Okay. You ready? Yeah, I’m going to hurl myths at you. Like with mythical strength. Okay. No — have you ever been like, this is a good time for a really bad pun? Yeah. I have a condition called I’m a dad. And so

[2:02] it’s like — I am so sorry. I want to apologize to all of you. All of you. All of us here. Every last one. I’m so sorry. Yes. Both of you. I want to apologize, too. So, all right. You ready for the myths? I’m ready. Let’s go. I’m going to hurl one. No, I’m going to just give you one. Here it is. Myth number one: you should always stretch before you exercise. Is it a myth? Is it? It depends on how you define it. Okay. Stretching. All right. Right. Yes. So there are a couple different ways you can stretch. Static stretching, dynamic

[2:32] stretching, which we’ll get into later. Okay. So real briefly though, what’s the difference between a static and a dynamic stretch? Static stretching — I mean, I know, but like, tell them. Oh, sure. Yeah, definitely. Guys, I know this, right? So I think of static stretching as what you were taught in PE when you were in third grade. Sit on the ground. The sit and reach. The sit and reach. Try to reach your toes. Sit and reach. Record holder. Highland View Middle School. Okay. Can I call and verify that? No. Because they tore that

[3:03] school down. So I can tell you whatever I want. I hold all kinds of records here. But yes, the sit and reach — continue. Sit and reach. Yes, I’m known for it. Yes. I thought I saw that in the paper once. You probably did, when there was newspapers. Mm-hmm. That would be an example of a static stretch. All right. Yeah. Which is useful stretching. Mm-hmm. But not necessarily before you work out. Okay. Before you exercise. And then there’s

[3:33] dynamic stretching, which you may have seen, which is kind of like butt kickers where you’re kind of walking and trying to hit your heels to your glutes. Yes. That’s stretching the front of your leg, your quad. So that’s a dynamic stretch. Okay. What about — can I ask you this? What about the bouncy stretch where the kids who were trying to cheat and take my sit and reach record were just like — you know, you reach once and you hold it there. Like, the bouncy stretch, is that dynamic or static? That is neither. It’s

[4:06] garbage. It’s garbage. That’s injury. That’s injury time. When we’ll talk about why later when we get into the spinal reflex. Cool. And we love to refer to that kind of activity — or stretch, whatever it is — as good for business. Yes. Yes. Okay. Good. Or ballistic, but good for business, too. Good for business. Yes. All right. Can we get into myth number two? Let’s do it. Okay. Myth number two: stretching prevents injuries. Likely not. Likely

[4:38] not. Why not? Like, but that’s what my PE teacher told me. And aren’t physical therapists basically PE teachers? I had to check. My PE teacher was Miss Quinn and I would definitely have to check her credentials. So I’m not sure who your PE teacher was. Yeah. You know what’s weird is they’re actually highly educated now. They are. So like, a lot of — especially in this school district — you have to have like a master’s degree to be a school teacher here. Much respect to PE teachers. That’s crazy.

[5:08] Yeah. It’s so good. It’s just that back in our day — you know what’s really awkward? Have you ever, as an adult, treated one of your old PE teachers? I have not. I’ve treated several of mine and it’s uncomfortable because it’s like, you know what, I’ve got a bone to pick with you. So much of that crap you said — just wrong. It was just wrong. So okay. So stretching doesn’t prevent injuries. It doesn’t. Okay. I wouldn’t waste your time stretching if you want to prevent injuries. Okay. The thing I

[5:38] would suggest is strength train. Strength train. Quite biased. It’s a very biased opinion on my part, but being strong allows your muscles and tendons to actually be able to take the load that you’re going to put your body through. So okay. Strengthening prevents injuries. I like that. And are we going to get more into this? Like, how much should I be digging right now? Because I have some questions — or is this a good time for the questions? Let’s try a question. All right. So, because I’ve heard this

[6:09] about powerlifting and things like that, that they look at studies of people who do these heavily weighted deep squats and they find that they tend to have very good flexibility. So this kind of myth of being muscle-bound isn’t necessarily the truth. That’s not true. Okay. And so those guys — aren’t they stretching extra? Are they stretching extra? Like, would

class or heard anything about sports knows that it’s called DOMS, delayed onset muscle soreness, and it happens, I think, 24 to 48 hours after exercise.

[6:40] Jason: You guess that they’re not stretching extra, or are they just working through like a fuller range of motion?

Kathy: They’re probably doing mobility drills.

Jason: Okay, that would be my guess. Okay, I like that. But I do work with some people who are extremely stiff, but they’re also extremely strong. So, and then I also work with some people that are probably on steroids. Maybe that has something to do with it, too. So, there’s the difference between stiffness, stiff

[7:10] muscles, and then joint mobility, right? To do deep squats, you have to have the joint mobility in your ankles, your knees, and your hips. And that’s different than, you know, stretching muscles.

Kathy: Okay. Yeah. Because people think stretching and they think that the only barrier to them being able to get to where they want to be is my tendons and my muscles are tight.

Jason: Yes. Okay. Not true.

Kathy: Good. All right. I like it. Well, let’s go to — this is like a perfect segue into myth number three — that more flexibility equals better

[7:41] performance.

Jason: No. Okay. You’re doing a good job of debunking these myths. Like I read a myth and I’m like, more flexibility is better performance. No. That’s a no. That is incorrect.

Kathy: It’s like everything else. Everything in moderation. Okay. Mobility is more of like a spectrum, and there’s a spectrum of like Jason’s stiff hamstrings on this end, right? And the other end is hypermobility, which — there’s actually

[8:11] something called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, in which that’s a genetic situation people are born with and they’re actually overly stretchy. People that — you don’t have Ehlers-Danlos if you have hypermobile joints. All the time it gets diagnosed, but that’s just one condition you can have in that spectrum of hypermobility.

Jason: Correct. So if you feel like you’re double-jointed, you may be hypermobile, but you have the same number of joints — you don’t have two joints.

Kathy: Gotcha. Can we just like

[8:42] get back to Jason’s tight hamstrings? Because are we talking about the Jason who also holds the Highland View Middle School sit-and-reach record?

Jason: Do we have a trophy? These aren’t the same kids.

Kathy: Do we have trophies?

Jason: Well, I mean, there’s like the evidence is probably buried in the rubble of the school that was torn down, which was not my decision. Okay. Well, and so, okay, let me ask you if you’ve noticed this, because I’ve worked with some Division I athletes. I’ve worked with some Olympic athletes,

[9:12] some pro athletes, and I don’t think that I’ve ever really gone and looked at the research on this or anything, but it’s just something that I’ve noticed. What I’ve noticed is that people that are high-performing sprinters tend to have extra tight hamstrings. Have you ever noticed anything like that? What do you know about that?

Kathy: Actually, I think, like you said, research has been done. They kind of need a little bit more stiffness to

[9:43] create the force that they need to sprint forward. And so hamstrings, glutes, quads. So they’re kind of getting some recoil out of those tissues.

Jason: Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. It’s not like they don’t stretch. They do need stretch and mobility, but being stretchy for them is not necessarily going to improve their performance.

Kathy: Okay. So that whole idea of the sprinter stretch maybe doesn’t do as much good as we thought.

Jason: That’s right. Okay. Well,

[10:14] that explains the correlation between my sit-and-reach record.

Kathy: Yeah.

Jason: And my 100-meter non-record.

Kathy: That’s right. Yeah. I excelled in other areas. Yeah. Okay. So, well, that’s good. Let’s get to myth number four. And I’m guessing we’re going to revisit a lot of these too, because you’re bringing up a lot of interesting stuff. What about holding a stretch? Is holding a stretch longer always better?

Jason: It depends on what you are stretching for.

Kathy: So if it depends, then not always.

Jason: Not always. So I would agree with that. All right.

[10:46] Let’s talk about it now. Let’s do this now. Okay. So, you know when you stretch and you feel really tight right away?

Kathy: Yeah. Oh, yes. Right. And so what that’s called is the spinal stretch reflex. So when you overstretch a muscle right away, your body sends a signal that goes to the

[11:16] spinal cord. It doesn’t even go to the brain, because you don’t want to go to the brain — that takes too long. The spinal cord just immediately contracts the muscle because it identifies danger, danger, danger, danger. You’re overstretching. It’s like when we do deep tendon reflexes, which is a neurological test where we’re hitting the tendon with the hammer and we want to see it twitch. That type of reflex.

Jason: Okay. Yeah. And so that reflex then tightens the muscle up. If you hold a stretch longer, eventually the message gets to the brain. The brain’s like,

[11:46] “Oh, this isn’t dangerous, so let’s let this muscle stretch out now.” So yes, you want to hold the stretch a little bit longer than those first five seconds or so. So okay. So then what trouble does that create for me down the road if I am holding those stretches for a really long time and I start messing with that spinal stretch reflex? Is that necessarily going to cause problems

[12:18] per se?

Kathy: I’m not exactly sure what you’re asking.

Jason: Well, like, okay, so if I start messing with that reflex — we’re now — it’s like my body’s not as responsive to it. Am I now at risk for like a strain, a sprain, an ACL tear, or like anything like that? Or is that something that we don’t know exactly what it’s setting me up for?

Kathy: Yeah. I did some research

[12:49] on stretching.

Jason: You researched this? Did you use ChatGPT?

Kathy: Nope. Which is not a sponsor of our podcast, but if you’re listening to this from OpenAI — can’t imagine you would be — and you would like to sponsor the podcast… well, anyway, tell me about your research, Kathy.

Jason: So, I think we’re going to get into this later about my guidelines on stretching, so I don’t want to give it all away right now.

Kathy: Well, we don’t have to spoil it. Okay, let’s move on to the

[13:19] next myth.

Jason: Yeah, let’s get this last myth. Yeah, this could be the mythiest myth of all the myths. Okay. Okay, you can stretch out soreness. Like if I stretch enough, I won’t be sore, right?

Kathy: That is not the case.

Jason: What is soreness? Let’s talk about what soreness is.

Kathy: Oh, that’s a good question. Okay. What is the soreness after working out? What is that caused by?

Jason: Well, I think everybody who’s ever been in PE

[13:49] will tell you that that soreness is, of course, lactic acid. That’s another myth we’re going to bust. Oh, really? Okay, good. All right, let’s do that. Wait, you mean it’s not? Lactic acid is maybe the most dangerous acid that is known to man. It’s not more dangerous than LSD, I don’t think. Are you sure? I’m pretty sure. That’s — I — I — that’s the extra myth that I threw in. So, lactic acid isn’t dangerous. It’s not the enemy. No, it is not lactic acid. Okay. So that stretch —

[14:19] — that soreness that you get after working out, say at Helix — yes. Helix physical therapy. Potential sponsor. Helix training. Oh, no. Training, not — yeah, you’re the physical therapy. Helix training. I’ll get it. It’s all good. It’s all good. So, after you had an awesome workout at Helix and you have some muscle soreness the next 24 to 72 hours, what that is — that is caused by micro-traumas to the muscle. When you overload a muscle to strengthen it,

[14:51] the body kind of sends in the immune system. There’s micro-trauma to the muscle fibers and then there’s an inflammatory response, and that is what’s causing your soreness — is an inflammatory response. But you want to know what helps you with soreness? What helps you is stretching? No, it’s not stretching. Busting. We just busted that myth. That’s what this episode’s about — is stretching. Okay. Well, so — okay. So, is that what they also call delayed onset muscle soreness? Is what you’re talking about, DOMS. Okay. So, what is helpful for delayed onset muscle soreness? One of the things

[15:22] is massage. Massage therapy. Now, you’re speaking my language. Do you have a massage therapist? Oh my gosh. I think that we do have some massage therapists. Yes. And I think it’s a good time to mention that Kathy owns a gym. That’s right. She does. Helix training. Helix training. Not physical therapy. No, no, no. It’s Helix training. That’s right. Yeah, it’s a good spot. I’ve worked out there. You have worked out there. Good. You’ve got really good trainers. They’re great. So, just to kind of divert our path here, I really like the small group

[15:52] workout model. It’s really great. I think that — I mean, because there’s a lot of them out there, right? There’s a lot of models out there. CrossFit’s probably the most popular one. CrossFit’s a little bit insane. And no offense to anybody out there who does CrossFit. Like, I’m not trying to pick a cross fight. No, we’re not picking a fight. No, absolutely not. You’re stronger than me. You do more of those weird pull-up things than I can. Yeah. I can’t do it either. No. I don’t — I don’t want — maybe because

[16:22] that’s what your form looks like. It’s super — I can’t do it. But it’s super practical, right? Like, “Oh my gosh, the helicopter’s leaving without me. Pull me up.” Oh jeez, almost lost the chair. That was something. No. So CrossFit — CrossFit’s great though. I do CrossFit. I like it. And then there’s also some of these boot camps and things like that. And what we run

[16:52] into sometimes with these — and this applies to stretching — is sometimes you get a group that’s too big. Mhm. And it has the feeling of being supervised, but it’s not really, right? It’s coached because you have somebody there leading the whole group and maybe they’ve got a headset on or the really loud music or something like that. And there’s a good energy being there with everybody — just like, “Let’s move some weight.” Yeah. But one of the things I like about Helix is that the group sizes are right.

[17:25] So you’re working with a group of about — I’ve never worked in a group of bigger than a dozen people. And so it’s nice because — I never need coaching. No, no, no. I’m doing all the exercises correctly, but it just warms my heart. Warms my heart seeing the trainers helping somebody else — not make business for me or you. Right. But some of these groups — they get in — same with the stretching — and I’ve been to all of them. Been to all of

[17:55] them, right? But man, sometimes when it’s like, “Hey, let’s start with a good — let’s start with a good stretch.” How about a good warm-up instead? “No, let’s stretch it out.” It’s like, okay, you guys can stretch. Yeah. So, I don’t know. But yeah, shout out to Helix Training. Okay. Anyway. Okay. All right. So, Kathy, you’ve addressed the myths in the room. Good job. Successfully and without challenge. Okay. Or opposition from me. Some — yeah.

[18:25] Not nice. Give us your guidelines. Like, let’s start with kind of the dynamic versus static stretching. So, you talked about the two types. So, the dynamic is kind of like a butt kicker, right? And that’s stretching out the quads. A lot of times, like I know when I was coaching athletes, they think, “Oh, butt kickers — these get my hamstrings ready.” And it’s not, right? We’re dynamically stretching the quads, right? So when would I want to use a dynamic stretch versus a static stretch? And like, what are some guidelines that I’d take up if I wanted to be using stretching effectively? How do I use those?

[18:55] Okay, so at Helix — okay, this is not a commercial. This is not a commercial. I promise it’s not a commercial. But guidelines really are, as you mentioned, dynamic stretching before a workout, because what you’re trying to do is prepare the muscles for the load that you’re about

[19:25] to put them under. And to prepare the muscles, we want to increase the temperature of the muscles — because physically warm. Yes. Get them physically warm. And it’s not just because they’re physically warm — that also primes your brain to move those muscles. And that’s really important when it comes to weightlifting, doing compound lifts, things that are kind of out of the ordinary from what you do in your regular daily life. So

[19:56] also warming up the muscles — I just lost my train of thought. This derailed — this is — this is menopause fog. Oh, that’ll be another topic. That’s another episode we’ll discuss. Well, but you triggered a thought that, you know, one of the goals of strength training — a lot of times people are like, “I want to lift weights so I can get bigger muscles,” but it’s not even always about bigger muscles, which is hypertrophy. We want to recruit more muscle fibers — which is strength. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And so —

[20:29] that’s also I think one of the goals of a dynamic stretch is the more of those muscle fibers that we could turn on and wake up. And they’re not like — I have I’ve got huge muscles. Like if you’re just listening to this, like you you don’t understand. All right. But if you’re watching this, you’re like you’re probably distracted. You’re probably not even hearing a word we’re saying because you’re like, “Look at those — that guy’s muscles.” Yeah. My one abdominal muscle. Anyway, so but you’re not always using all the muscle fibers even

[20:59] if you have them, right? So that’s part of the process in that dynamic warm-up is let’s wake up some of these muscle fibers and get ready to use them. So yeah, it’s a prime for your nervous system too, because your nervous system and your brain have to be on board and get ready for what you’re about to do. Yes. So that’s why I like dynamic, and you see that a lot with — if you go to any sporting event. Mhm. Before games, you’ll see the athletes out there priming their bodies and

[21:29] they’re usually — if they’re doing static stretching, they’re doing it wrong. Yeah. But most of them get hurt. Yeah. So, but most of them you see out there doing a lot of dynamic stretching. Yeah. So, what are maybe some of your favorite dynamic stretches? Like I love the butt kickers. Yeah. Give me give me some for like an upper body workout and some for a lower body workout. You don’t have to demonstrate. Just kind of describe. That’s good. Yeah, we can only do one. Oh, these chairs. These chairs. I can only do one good rep. Okay.

[21:59] Anyway, so if we’re going to do an upper body heavy workout, what we’ll do, believe it or not, is we’ll start with arm circles. Arm circles. Yeah, the arm circles. Pizzas. Yeah. So, we will demonstrate then. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Do the — you you describe those. Yes. Very good. Squeeze stuff working. Okay. And then rock the baby. Oh, rock the baby. Yeah. So, I think a man came up with this because this is how a man rocks the baby. Spin the baby. Spin the baby. Spin the baby.

[22:33] Oh, then my my favorite dynamic stretches — we talked about like the butt kickers, like the hamstring scoop. Hamstring scoop. Is that the one where they — Yep. Like that? Yep. Put the — put the front leg out straight and scoop down. Okay. Can you can you explain that to me? Cuz I see like that’s really popular with the high school kids these days. And like I’m watching that and I’m like what are they scooping up and how do they explain that to people? Like I don’t remember ever doing that. Like I don’t — I seriously have never done a hamstring — a ham — the hamstring scoop. A hamster scoop. Okay.

[23:04] A hamster poop. I don’t do that. Or the hamstring scoop. Yes. Okay. So tell me like what what is that? What is that stretch? Like yeah. What what are we scooping? We’re scooping. So the front leg is going to be straight. So your knee is going to be straight. So you’re going to put that hamstring on full stretch as you bend over. So you’re you’re scooping your hamstring. You’re reaching down to touch. You don’t quite touch the floor, but you’re scooping down and coming up. And the other thing that that is also warming up is your

[23:34] lumbar spine and your hips, too. Oh, I’ve heard of those. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. Yeah. Yeah. I like it. And then a a good warm-up is just your body weight squat. If you’re going to do squats and lunges in that workout, just get those quads and hips warmed up. Tell you, a body weight squat is magical. Yeah. Not just for warm-up, but it’ll change your life. Mhm. I read a study about 2 weeks ago and it was about

[24:07] body weight squats to help control blood sugar. Oh yeah. Can you believe that? So what they found was — they took — oh jeez. I think this was in Japan. I I don’t remember where it was. I’m not going to make stuff up. But they they had their — they had their experiment. It was — oh, it was on the moon. No, no, but the experimental group, they had — they had these — it was men. They had them every 45 minutes do

[24:38] 10 body weight squats and they checked their blood sugar compared to somebody who did one 30-minute walk in a day. And they found that doing 10 body weight squats every 45 minutes — which is not — it’s not unreasonable, it’s not difficult. Like I even tried this myself — that it was more effective for helping to control blood sugar than a 30-minute walk. Wow. You know where like everybody’s doctor is like, “Hey, if you go walking for 30 minutes a day, that’s

[25:08] that’s darn near all you need.” But I’m sorry, the body weight squats are superior. So, as I’ve tried to do this, I found that it wasn’t just my blood sugar getting better. Like it actually — it it makes lots of things better. Like I found that — like you know the the aches and pains you get when you start getting older. You’re not older yet, but yeah. Like you start to get those and like it’s like when you’re a dad and you’ve been a dad long enough, like there is a noise that you are required by law to make — they’ll revoke your

[25:39] driver’s license if you don’t make the sound when you get up off the couch. And like I wasn’t making that anymore. So yeah, I think those are good warm-ups. That’s that’s what I was trying to say in a very long way. Yeah. Yeah. That you agree with me. I I always agree with you, Kathy. All right. So talk to me about how long you should hold a stretch. Does that matter? Yeah. Well, I mean, you already alluded to that somewhat. The spinal reflex. Yes. Yes. And the recent research — I went back and researched this cuz — Miss Quinn, I’m not sure if Miss Quinn’s, you know,

[26:10] still alive or not, but she’s probably listening. Yeah. I mean, honestly, probably, because at this point she’s probably very advanced age and her assisted living people won’t turn it off. There is that part. We love you, Miss Quinn. We do. We do. Shout out — speedy recovery. Scratch that. You’ll be fine. Okay. So what the recent research shows is that you need about — if you

[26:44] want to change the length of a muscle, you want to change the length of your quad or your hamstring, you want to hold that stretch for 180 to 300 seconds, okay? And optimally 4 minutes a day. So that’s a long — that’s a long stretch to hold. So, what I normally see is people don’t hold their stretches long enough. Okay. Yeah. So, when in the clinic, I’ll usually try to get them to hold it for 30 seconds to a minute. Okay. And are you

[27:15] doing multiple reps of that, or is it just like, let’s get your whole four minutes in? Or does it need to be done repeatedly, like loaded, unloaded? Yeah. The research doesn’t say whether you need to do it all at once. So I usually break it up into one-minute sessions so they can get their four minutes in. Okay. That’s — if you want to change the length of muscle. Gotcha. So that’s what static stretching is for. Okay. If you wanted to — and why would I want to change

[27:45] the length of a muscle? Well, in my mind, if we’re having pain, that’s the time that I want to try to change the length of a muscle. Right. Because it maybe creates some imbalances, puts some stress on other structures. Exactly. Sounds good to me. Yeah. Is that the answer you’re looking for? I accept. I accept. Yeah. Okay. Let’s see. I got some notes here. Oh, yeah, they’re gone. Yeah, just

[28:16] my notes are gone. They’re gone. All right. Well, stretching common mistakes. Yeah, I would like to talk about common mistakes. Stretching when you should be strengthening. Oh, okay. Yes. Good. Tell me about that. Yes. And that is that in a nutshell. You should be strengthening instead of stretching. Okay. Yes. Are there problems with muscle length that could affect your ability to strengthen?

[28:50] That’s a good question. I haven’t thought the answer for — I don’t think I know the answer to it either. Right. Yeah. But I was just counting on you being smarter than me. Let’s discuss. Mm-hmm. Well, I would say that there are — okay. And like, because when you think about — if you want to do a bicep curl, right, and you’re holding that in the fully extended position, that’s one of the weakest positions for that muscle, right? And then the other extreme also, there’s just like not much else that you can get at it. So I think

[29:21] that muscle length is important to be able to like generate some power and force. I just — I don’t know, or can’t remember, like what kind of relationship that would have with like actually kind of stretching a muscle or a tissue beforehand. So, mm-hmm. I don’t know. What are your thoughts? You know, my first thought goes to — how do I get stronger? So if I want to lift heavier, if I want to do a back squat or front squat,

[29:52] because I want to lift heavier and get stronger, I don’t really necessarily think of muscle length as being the issue — as joint mobility, okay, is a bigger issue. So if my hips don’t allow me to get into that deep hole in a squat, yeah, that’s more my hip joint, hip capsule. There could be some muscles. But I would think more mobility in the joints, right, would preclude me from being stronger versus muscle length. So in a case like that,

[30:23] it would make sense to give some attention to a good dynamic warm-up before you do it, so that you can get that component of muscle and tendon that might be limiting your range of motion out of the way. And then it’s just about like how much does my capsule move, how much does the integrity of the joint allow me to move. Well, then is there a place for static stretching? Like, should we just never do that? No, it’s not something that you should never do. I think static stretching has

[30:56] its place for sure. So do I put that like before the workout too, or is that after? Yeah, I would definitely — I tend to recommend people static stretch after they work out. So I should have been working out before I did my sit-and-reach. Yes. To bring it back to my sit. Imagine how much better your sit-and-reach would have been. They wouldn’t have torn down my middle school. Nope. Okay. Likely. All right. Well, let’s see. How about — what are some just kind of

[31:26] practical takeaways whenever it comes to this? Like, if you could kind of encapsulate all this — because you’ve done a good job of addressing these myths and kind of giving us the difference between a static and dynamic — like, let’s say one of the high school kids that you coach, right, if they’re like, “Hey coach, like, what do I need to do whenever it comes to stretching? Give me the two-minute version of this is how I’m going to change your life by telling you about stretching.”

[31:56] Wow. I hope Miss Quinn is listening. Miss Quinn — I think she is definitely listening. So what you’re asking me is my athlete wants to know what they should do for stretching. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. She’s been like on Instagram, she’s seen a lot of confusing, conflicting information. She’s seen all the things. And she’s like, “Coach, tell me the no-BS — ” Yeah. “Give me the type of no-BS information they would give on The PTCH Podcast.” The PTCH Podcast would tell you that a good dynamic warm-up likely

[32:29] can be as short as five minutes, as long as 10 minutes, with the exercises I’ve just discussed, to get you ready to practice and play. Okay. Yeah. All right. Sweet. I like it. I want to shift gears a little bit. Yep. Yoga. Yeah. We love yoga. We do. It’s good for business sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. But it also fixes problems. I mean, and I’m sure that you’ve probably seen it too, where you have people who have come in and they’re

[32:59] like, “Oh my gosh, I’m so much better. Guess what I started doing?” And you’re thinking, “It’s definitely chiropractic.” Oh, it’s definitely yoga, right? So, yeah, it’s got to be yoga, right? And so, but then have you ever had somebody come in and they injured themselves yogaing? Is that — is that a verb? Scott, can you look up “yogaing”? Yeah. Okay. Thank you.

[33:31] So have you seen that? Because I’ve seen it both ways. Yes. Right. So, I don’t know. What’s your take on yoga? Good, bad? I love yoga. Okay. Yeah. I think yoga is great. I think it’s delicious. Like a good parfait. There’s nothing wrong with that. And there’s something about the mindfulness — yes — of yoga. It’s great for recovery, although it doesn’t help with soreness. Mm-hmm. But it also does help with joint mobility. Yes, for sure. There’s a

[34:01] study done that people who retire — from their jobs and go to retirement — that their shoulder mobility, and I forget the percentage of it, but their shoulder mobility suffers. I don’t know if that’s, you know, office workers putting things up on — they’re not punching that clock — it’s the clock punch. Oh yeah. But what keeps me lubricated all these

[34:31] The thing I love about yoga is that it can help keep people’s mobility in a functional range of motion. Yes. Right. Yes. And it is true when they say if you don’t use it, you lose it, because you do. Absolutely. If you’re not punching that clock, you’re losing that shoulder mobility. Absolutely. So when I think about — here’s, here’s

[35:04] Jason: first of all, the mindfulness is spot on because, like, you know about the power of placebo. Everybody knows about that. It’s totally misinterpreted though, because sometimes people hear “placebo” and they think, “Oh, it’s a fake treatment,” which is not it at all. Placebo is the power of your mind to heal your body, right? And it’s involved in every kind of treatment that we do. Like physical therapy is placebo. So is chiropractic. So is an Advil. So is a

[35:34] ACL surgery, and so on and so forth. And I think there’s stacks and stacks of evidence to support that. And so mindfulness has a huge role in our wellness, whether it’s our mobility or anything like that. And so one of the things I really value about yoga is that it is a system that kind of honors that mindfulness as well as incorporates some movements alongside of it. Another thing that I like about yoga is something that I don’t really

[36:06] like so much about CrossFit, which is — just about everything you can do in CrossFit can be done in a hallway, right? It’s a very sagittal thing, right? So we’re doing this, we’re doing this, we’re riding this bike, you know, and so there’s not a lot of lateral movements or rotational movements in CrossFit. And this is a generalization — that’s not the case in all of it. But yoga is multi-dimensional. It has a lot of

[36:36] twists and rotations, and it also incorporates balance and things like that. And so yoga isn’t just stretching. It’s also strengthening at the same time, which I think is really cool. Have you ever tried to do warrior?

Kathy: Uh, yeah. Quads burn.

Jason: Yeah, it does. Well, and it’s — warrior, although it has an aggressive name, it’s not really an aggressive thing. It’s just a pose, but you get there and it’s like, “I got to hold this.” So, I actually, when I was coaching club volleyball, we

[37:08] went to Walnut Valley Power Yoga, which — you could be a sponsor, Walnut Valley Power Yoga.

Kathy: Oh, yeah.

Jason: Yeah, they’re awesome. But we — they let us come down for a day and they took us through a whole bunch of like yoga moves and partner stuff. It was dope. It was great. But that is, I think, a great type of setting to be doing yoga. One of the things that I see most often when I have people come in with yoga injuries is they’re doing it off of YouTube — or YouTube, you could

[37:39] be a sponsor, too. No, I’m just kidding. No, probably not. They don’t. They don’t. They’re probably helping us enough. But yeah, people are just trying to follow a YouTube video or a VHS tape or a DVD, right? And so when you don’t have the feedback of somebody who’s kind of helping take you through that, especially if you’re untrained, you haven’t done it before, it’s easy to hurt yourself, right? And so, yeah, find yourself a yoga

[38:10] studio or an instructor or something like that. And it’s good. A lot of problems get fixed by that kind of stuff.

Kathy: Yeah. And then there’s other kinds of stretching systems and things like that, like Feldenkrais. Have you — yeah. Have you — are you familiar?

Jason: I’ve not experienced it.

Kathy: I haven’t either, but I have patients ask me about it all the time.

Jason: Yeah. But I think that those systems — I mean, they work. They work. And so I think sometimes people get a little stuck up and they’re like, “This is the only

[38:40] thing that works.” But the thing that’s kind of cool is you look at yoga and it’s thousands of years old, right? And that system works, and they didn’t even need to wait for the research. They did it, right? Like, if you go back thousands of years and you say, “Hey, is this a dynamic warm-up that we’re doing?” — you know, and they’d be like, “What are you talking about?” Right? But it works. And I like stuff like that, where it’s like, we’ve just always known that it worked. Now we have

[39:10] the evidence to back it up. So that’s cool. What about goats? Do you need goats in order to do yoga?

Kathy: It’s recommended. It’s recommended. Yeah. It’s far more effective with farm animals.

Jason: Yeah. So if you can’t find a goat, I hear weasel yoga is becoming very popular. It’s a lot faster paced.

Kathy: Hamster.

Jason: Yes. Get your rabies shot every time. All right. All right. Well, Kathy, we’re almost out of time.

Kathy: Okay.

Jason: And I really want to play

[39:41] this game.

Kathy: Okay, let’s play.

Jason: Okay. Yeah. And this — we’re going to call this one “Stretching the Truth.” Okay. Because you know I love puns.

Kathy: Love the puns.

Jason: I told you it’s a dad pun. Yeah. I’m under contract as a dad. So yeah, we’re calling this one “Stretching the Truth.” So I’m going to hit you with three real-sounding studies about stretching. Oh, and you’ve got to pick which one — one of them is completely made up.

[40:11] Kathy: Okay. And so we want to see if you can spot the fake.

Jason: All right. Here we go. So let me switch to my app that has this. Let’s see. I don’t want to present these in an order that might give it away. Okay. So what I’m going to do — I have three studies here, and I want you to tell me: are we going to do study one, two, or three first?

Kathy: Let’s see. Door number two.

Jason: We’re going to start with door number two. Okay. This is a very interesting study. It’s

[40:42] actually out of the UK, and it’s a study of giraffes in a zoo. Okay. And what they did was they studied two groups of giraffes. There was an experimental group and a control group.

Kathy: Mm-hmm.

Jason: The experimental group — they helped the giraffes do some assisted stretching. In the control group, there was no stretching. And then they timed the giraffes sprinting.

Kathy: No.

Jason: 200 meters. Yes,

[41:14] they did.

Kathy: I need video.

Jason: And what they found — well, it was just a journal. There was no video. What they found was that the giraffes that did assisted stretching were able to sprint 18% faster than the control group.

Kathy: Wow. Crazy, right?

Jason: Wow. These are all pretty crazy. Yeah. Okay. So you started soft, like — okay. Okay. All right. Which one are we going to next?

Kathy: Giraffes. Let’s go three.

Jason: Number three. Okay. This is a study involving not giraffes but infants — little babies.

[41:46] Okay. And in this study they took the infants and they decided to stretch them — stretch their necks in particular, the sternocleidomastoid. Oh yeah, that one, this one right here. Yep. And they compared two groups of infant stretching, and in one group they stretched the baby’s sternocleidomastoid 100 times, and then in another group they stretched 50 times. Wow. Yes. And would you

[42:16] believe that the group that was stretched 100 times ended up with greater neck flexibility? How long did they hold the stretch? Um, let’s see. That’s not in my synopsis here. Yeah, but okay. So, details minor. So, the first study we talked about was the sprinting giraffes. Got it. The second study is the stretching babies. And that — it sounds like a lot of stretching. Inappropriate. Yeah, I know. You got to wonder about the ethics, right? Okay. So then the only one left is number one. This is going to take us all the way to the other side of the

[42:46] world to Israel, where they studied a group — two groups of Israeli prisoners. And they had one group that engaged in yoga classes while they were incarcerated. And then the control group did no yoga classes. And what they found was that the group that did yoga had a lower recidivism rate, which means that they came back to prison at a lower rate than the ones who didn’t do yoga, after 5

[43:17] years. Okay? So they followed both groups for 5 years. Mindfulness. And so they found that doing yoga while you’re in prison can reduce your level of criminality. I believe that. Okay. So take a second. Okay. Think very carefully. Okay, if you win, what do I win? Um, you will get to remain on this podcast as my colleague and your practice will not be taken from

[43:47] you. Okay. I don’t — I don’t know. You’re going to win respect. Okay. Honor. Okay. Praise. I like all three of those. I like those. You like all three of those. Okay. So, which one of those studies is just pure crap? Which one is a stretch of the truth? Oo, that’s another good pun. That’s why the game is called Stretching the — Let’s go through this. Giraffes is the truth. Giraffes is the truth. Giraffes is the truth. Babies are fake.

[44:21] That is the kind of evidence-based information that you’ll get on the PTCH Podcast, where babies are fake. They are fake. Giraffes are the truth. I think the prisoners are true. Okay. So, you’re going to say the giraffes are true. Prisoners are true. Babies are fake. Yeah. I’m sorry. It is — the giraffes are fake. Stop. Yes. That is — that is not a real study. I’m sorry. But you know what the good news is? I believe absolutely

[44:51] everything else that you told us about stretching today. So, thank you very much. Thank you very much for all that information about stretching. It was really, really important. Hopefully all of you can take some of that knowledge, incorporate it into the way that you’re working out and exercising. Really appreciate you tuning in for this episode of the PTCH Podcast. Want to remind you to subscribe — smash that subscribe. Stretch your hand towards the subscribe.

[45:23] Yes. Um, follow and leave us a review — whether you loved it or whether you hated it, please leave us a comment. That would be so nice, right? It helps us to get seen and maybe then we can retire one day and develop shoulder problems. You can follow us on YouTube at PTCHpodcast. On social media, Instagram, we’re PTCHpodcast. My personal Instagram is at Body of Health. Hers is Encore Physical Therapy. Yes. All one word. Please send in

[45:55] your listener questions for future episodes. And remember, there is no I in PTCH. No eye.