The authors of this research study published in the January 2012 issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise~R conducted a meta-analytical review on the acute effects of stretching on maximal muscle performance (2). The topic is timely because of the fact that recent literature has called into question the benefits of preexercise muscle stretching. This is following reports of significant poststretch reductions in force and power production. However, as the authors mention, methodological issues and equivocal findings in much of the research to date have prevented a clear consensus from being reached. The authors utilized MEDLINE, ScienceDirect, SPORTDiscus, and Zetoc with recursive reference checking for their analysis. Selection criteria included randomized or quasi-randomized controlled trials and intervention-based trials published in peer-reviewed scientific journals examining the effect of an acute static stretch intervention on maximal muscular performance. Their searches produced 4,559 possible articles with 106 meeting the inclusion criteria. After careful examination of the approved articles, the authors were able to demonstrate clear evidence that short-duration acute static stretch, <30 s, had no detrimental effect on maximal muscle performance in strength-, power-, or speed-dependent tasks.
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