Fascinating Science Behind Exercise - Part 2

May 1, 2012

Interview with Gretchen Reynolds, author of the book The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can: Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer

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Mike Carruthers:
When you exercise I’ll bet you stretch your muscles first.

Gretchen Reynolds:
The best science shows you do not need to stretch before you work out and in fact probably should not.

Gretchen Reynolds Fitness Columnist for The New York Times and author of the book, The First 20 Minutes...

I don’t know about you but I was taught in PE class that I had to stretch and in fact that’s completely counter-productive. It will not make you more flexible it seems to cause in most people a neurological response that actually tightens the muscles. So you’re slightly more likely to wind up hurting yourself if you’ve done that and you’re athletic performance (if that matters) tends to decline if you stretch before you work out.

Now warming up is a different story.

Meaning that you literally warm up the muscles and the best way to do that is by doing say a really easy version of what you’re about to do. If you’re going to run then jog or even walk for 5 minutes. Warm up the muscles by moving them but you do not do that by static stretching.

And if you need another reason to exercise it has to do with your brain.

An ongoing myth is we are born with a certain number of brain cells and will never make more. Well that’s not true we do make more brain cells throughout our life and you’ll double the number of brain cells you’ll make if you exercise.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here.