How Much Stretching Does It Take to Make You More Flexible, According to Science?
Flexibility is an underrated aspect of fitness, especially since we tend to lose some of our mobility as we age—how many older people in your life can comfortably reach their head? But whether you’re doing it to improve your lifestyle or exercise, stretching can be boring and only lead to slow progress. How do you know if you’re stretching enough? Luckily, new research has given us some guidance.
These guidelines apply to static stretching, which is a traditional form where you hold a position. ( Other mobility exercises , including dynamic stretching, are still helpful, but were not included in this study.)
How long to hold a stretch for immediate improvement
Stretching has both short-term and long-term benefits. We often think of flexibility as a long-term journey (we become more flexible people over time), but there is also a more dramatic temporary effect that occurs during and immediately after a stretching session. Let’s talk about this first.
You may remember when I did a three-minute video of toe touching exercises, in the beginning I couldn’t quite touch the ground. In the end my palms were on the ground .
This short-term effect is a great way to unlock the flexibility you need to use for a specific goal. For example, dancers stretch right before a performance. And if you need extra ankle mobility to get the most out of squats , or extra shoulder mobility for overhead raises, this is a great reason to stretch those body parts during your warm-up .
According to a recent study, you can maximize the short-term benefits of stretching by stretching that muscle for just four minutes. This doesn’t necessarily mean one four-minute segment; this could be 30 seconds eight times or one minute four times. And they don’t have to be the same type of stretch, as long as they work the same muscle.
Less than four minutes will still give you some benefit, but according to the researchers, four minutes is the most that can help.
Should stretching hurt?
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that stretching is more effective the harder you do it. To be effective, stretching should not be painful. A recent study found that both hard and soft stretches work equally well.
Flexibility trainers often say that it’s best to do gentle stretches where you feel the stretch but not the pain. If you’re careful about it, you’ll be able to stretch longer and more often (and have more fun in the process!), which are factors that will really help you make progress.
How much stretching should we do each week?
If you want to become more flexible in the long term, you should aim for 10 minutes per muscle per week. Again, this can be broken down. If you have a program that stretches each muscle for one minute (for example, 2 sets of 30 seconds), doing this program five days a week will help you achieve your goal.
Or perhaps you’re already interested in those short-term benefits I mentioned above, so you do a warm-up that takes three to four minutes per muscle. These count toward your ten minutes for the week, so you may not need to do any additional stretching beyond these warm-ups as long as these warm-ups hit all the muscles you’re targeting.
You don’t have to do your best; just pick a few muscles or body parts that you would like to make more flexible. Pick one or two favorite stretches for everyone and get into the habit of doing them for a minute every day. Here are some of my favorite stretches to get you started:
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Best stretches for calves and ankles (especially good for squats)