Reasons for Stretching?
I am quite new to all of this and want to learn more about stretching. Why is it important to do and could I hurt myself without stretching? Thanks Adrian

Stretching is important in most sports but especially in martial arts. There are three 'main' reasons for stretching; Prevent injury, Improve performance and Increase health. It's important to do if you are going to attempt techniques/movements with a greater ROM (range of movement) than you are used to, if you don't warm up and stretch you could hurt yourself, most common is the pulled muscle although you could tear your muscle or other connective tissue and worse if not careful. You should stretch before and after training sessions and when not training, there are many different types of stretches you can do with various stretching techniques. The main types are static and dynamic stretches and both should be used at varying times to increase flexibility effectively, you should do a warm up before doing any stretching, the warm up helps prevent injury when the muscles are being stretched/worked. Imagine two elastic bands ones frozen and ones at room temp, you apply force and stretch the one at room temp and it stretches ok you do the same to the frozen band and it would snap/break. The warm up works on similar principles. The warm up should increase heart rate and the blood flow to the muscles increasing oxygen and nutrient delivery while increasing temperature. Many martial artists intermingle the warm up and stretching and only do their stretching at the start of a session. This IMO is not the best approach, the warm up should always come first raising the temperature increasing blood flow and loosening up muscles and joints this should be followed by a ‘light’ stretching session but while keeping warm. Stretching to solely improve ROM should not be primarily done at this point IMO and should be done on another non training day, there is some research that says excessive stretching before sessions can actually cause injuries rather than prevent them. The warm up and stretching before a session should be to prepare the muscles and the rest of the body for the session ahead. Therefore I advise a thorough warm up followed by light dynamic stretching then you should give the muscles a little stretch with some light static stretching but the main of the pre-session stretches should then be dynamic stretches/movements starting off lightly and increasing up to replicating some of the movements you are likely to be doing in the session, this also prevents your muscles from getting cold rather than sat on a floor doing lots of static stretches for too long. Another point often overlooked due to lack of time etc is the cool down and stretching after the session, the cool down is a reversal of the warm up and should taper your training off rather than just suddenly stopping and going home, this will help with recovery and preventing DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness), the after session stretching should consist of dynamic stretches first leading off from your cool down and then slow static stretches holding the stretches for slightly longer than in the pre-session static stretches, this will also aid recovery and help maintain flexibility. However your main training for increasing ROM i.e. so you can do high kicks and splits etc should be done at home or wherever but ideally not on a martial arts training day. This is where you can aim to increase your flexibility rather than just doing stretches to prep for the session, you should spend about 20-30 mins incl warm up. Again start with some light dynamic stretches then move on to some deep static stretching and holding the position for about 25+ secs each time, this will help the neural reflex arc that prevents over stretching to get used to the stretch gradually, after about 6+ secs the Golgi tendon organ will send signals to the CNS to allow the muscle to further relax, this will allow you to increase the stretch slightly. Over a period of time you should be looking to increase the ROM, after static stretching I do some PNF (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) stretching however you need to do this lightly and be careful, you then finish up with a little more dynamic stretching to loosen off and then you should let your muscles recover, at least for a couple of days (although ‘very light’ dynamic stretching daily is ok to keep loose). Following this method over time you should be able to increase flexibility nicely and prevent un/over stretched injuries. For years even as a black belt I used to have problems with sore muscles and lack of ROM as I was only stretching before sessions to try and increase flexibility this and lack of recover did more harm than good but after getting fed up with hardly being able to walk each time after training I started to treat stretching as a separate important training regime just as you would weight lifting etc looking at it from a scientific viewpoint which helped a lot. Hope this helps