The unfortunate truth about stretching

I had a question from a client last week.

He was frustrated by his persisting back pain,

and wanted to know what he should be doing while in isolation.

He said he's been doing stretches and self-massages. 

My first recommendation for him was to stop stretching.

He was taken aback.

Much of the advice he's heard from practitioners is about the importance of stretching.

He said he feels good for doing the stretches. 

So, why am I saying that stretching isn't helpful, and actually stretching is potentially aggravating?


The first thing to take notice of is that the good feelings for doing stretches usually don't last long.

I did this for myself many years ago when I had chronic back pain and hip pain, 

This is what I had been taught by my coaches and physiotherapists at the time. 

I felt like I was doing something helpful by stretching,

and then the next day I was back to the start and needed to stretch again.

I did this for years, even though it didn’t really help.  🥴  😧  😒   

‘When NOT To Stretch & When To Stretch’

When DOESN'T stretching help and when DOES stretching help?

When we understand the neuroscience we see that stretching does NOT help improve pain and injury problems.

I'll explain why in a bit.


Stretching CAN help when there are no pain and injury problems.

for moving our body parts better.

Firstly, It is important to not stretch into pain.


I recommend if you've got no pain to take frequent breaks from work 

and stretch into movements that you aren't using often.

Or, if you need to achieve specific movement to do exercise or sport well 

then stretch to get good for this.

We see ballet dancers, gymnasts do extreme versions of this type of stretching,

but for most of us just moving into full movement a few times is plenty.


Why isn't stretching helpful for pain and injury problems?

To answer that I'll take a step back and ask,

Why are the muscles tight in the first place?

Are they tight because they are 'short' and need to be 'lengthened'?

Or, are they tight because they are contracting (grabbing) or not letting go to protect?

You might have picked it,

they are actually tight because they are contracting (grabbing) to protect.

What are they protecting?

They are protecting the areas of our bodies that have built-up strain.


What happens when we stretch a muscle that is grabbing to protect?

Yes, you might have guessed it,

The muscle grabs more and we are adding to the strain.

Even when we warm up with the stretches 

and temporarily feel better, the increasing strain is still occurring.


"If you go through a list of injuries and their presumed mechanisms, not many of them cannot clearly be blamed on anything that stretching can fix. Maybe none." - Paul Ingraham* 


If we are in pain what can we do?

Until you can get the Youngify team to reduce the strain. 

It can be helpful to find a position where there is as little muscle grabbing as possible.

This is when the muscles are softer to push into with your fingers.

Then do small, slow movements to the point where the muscles suddenly start to grab.

And stop at this point, to avoid strain and further accumulation of strain.

Return to the start position.

Repeat the movement with the least possible grabbing multiple times.


If the grabbing increases then stop and try a different movement.

If the grabbing remains the same then you are being helpful to experience good movement.

And sometimes this good movement helps decrease the grabbing over time.

If the grabbing muscles gradually get less over time then you are de-accumulating strain

and this is helpful for improving your pain.

I'm not able to give specifics for body parts by email because 

which movements are helpful and which are not is different for different people and different problems.

But, understanding that it is safe, and helpful, to move without grabbing muscles (accumulating strain) can be reassuring in itself.

I encourage you to try this for yourself.

If you are not sure which stretch is right for you, let me know any questions you have.


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*https://www.painscience.com/articles/stretching.php