Andrew Huberman· PhD
The “30sec static hold, 3X per day, every day” data are solid for improving range of motion
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The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
The “30sec static hold, 3X per day, every day” data are solid for improving range of motion
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So, whether or not you want to maintain, reestablish, or gain limb range of motion, static stretching of holds of 30 seconds appear to be best.
Now I've already highlighted some of the key take aways from the study, namely that we need to get at least five minutes per week of static stretching per muscle group. And based on the previous paper that we talked about, we need to divide that five minutes into sets of 30 seconds each. And as I mentioned earlier, it doesn't seem to be the case that you can do all of that in one day, unfortunately. It does seem important that the frequency of stretching practice distributed throughout the week is important.
those can be very short protocols limited to, say, three sets of 30, maybe in 45 or 60 seconds of static hold.
And so, that points to perhaps the reason why so few people are doing dedicated range of motion work, but it also reminds me that all of the studies that were described at least in this review and some of the other ones that were not really show impressive changes in limb range of motion.
We are now talking about doing static stretching, so holding, so limiting momentum and holding a stretch for 30 seconds per set. We're talking about trying to achieve five minutes per week of those static holds, but that we can't do it all in one session because the frequency of sessions distributed throughout the week correlates with the improvements in limb range of motion.
The data indicated that performing stretching at least five days a week. Now, some of you may already be groaning, for at least five minutes per week. Okay, so five days per week, that's a lot, but at least five minutes per week, five minutes per week is not that much. Using static stretching may be beneficial to promote range of motion improvements.
it does appear that that frequency about the week getting those repeated sessions, even if they are short for an individual muscle group, turns out to be important.
with five days being the minimum weekly recommended frequency to achieve significant range of motion improvements.
Time spent stretching per week seems fundamental to elicit range of movement improvements when stretches are applied for at least or more than five minutes per week. Whereas the time spent stretching within a single session does not seem to have a significant effect for range of motion gains.
So, it appears that the greatest improvements in limb range of motion for your time spent and effort spent is going to be this minimum of five minutes per week to elicit a significant response with five days being the minimum weekly recommended frequency to achieve significant range of motion improvements.
So, what this means is that we should probably be doing anywhere from two to four sets of 30 second static holds stretches five days per week or some variant thereof.