Stretching and Sports Injuries

Does stretching before exercise reduce the risk of sports injuries? Many coaches, trainers, and athletes swear that it does, but no one knows for sure because the critical experiment has never been done.

Now researchers are attempting to do the experiment. Sponsored by USA Track & Field (USATF), the researchers are currently enrolling people who run at least 10 miles per week. Participants must agree to be assigned randomly to either the "stretch" or the "no-stretch" group and to adhere to the study protocol for three months. Runners in both groups are expected to report their injuries during the study period.

Runners can apply to be participants at www.usatf.org/stretchStudy/. So far several thousand runners have signed up, though not all of them have completed the study protocol and submitted their reports. The results will be made public as soon as enough runners have completed the protocol for there to be a statistically significant difference between the groups, or when enough data has accumulated to show that there is no difference. Ultimately, up to 10,000 runners may be needed.

Runners, this is your golden opportunity to contribute to the advancement of science.