Can warm up or stretching prevent injury?
This was the reason we were required to do the stretches — we were told that if we didn’t stretch our chance of injury was much higher than if we did. Over the years, some scientific studies have attempted to answer this question but there aren’t very many high-quality trials for us to look at. With the best available evidence, it’s reasonable for us to conclude that a low intensity warm-up reduces injury risk, but that a pre-activity stretching routine (done by itself without any movement warm up) does not help and in some studies might actually increase injury risk. This is somewhat of a grey area, in that it seems that some types of stretching done after a warm-up is fine, especially if the athlete is naturally inflexible. Can warm up or stretching improve athletic performance? Again, the evidence shows a difference between pre-activity stretching (not good) and warm up (good). In studies comparing several regimens, the groups that did stretching as their only pre-activity routine
