The basic ‘thought pattern’ I referenced in the first post was about how solutions to major problems tend to get applied to problems of decreasing importance. The example I used was hand washing; it first emerged to solve a major problem (doctors first touching deadly germs, then touching vulnerable new mothers as they gave birth) before being applied to increasingly less important problems ('I just got off the Red Line' or "I’m about to each some French fries…better wash those germs off first!"). As increasingly less important problems were ‘solved’ by hand washing, the gains of cleaning up moved closer and closer to being offset by the cost of over-sterilization.
The best personal example for this thought pattern involves stretching. From the first minutes of my athletic life, I was urged to stretch. Every basketball practice of my life - from the most casual youth team all the way through varsity college basketball - started with some kind of stretching routine. During this time, I rarely experienced muscle problems.
At some point, I heard a fairly memorable quip - runners who do yoga tend to get injured. Who said this or where I heard it are facts lost to the eroding edges of my memory banks. But whatever the source, I responded to the thought and started experimenting a bit with my stretching routine. To my surprise, I found I did not need to stretch quite so much (or in the same way) I always did prior to exercise. I did find it beneficial to stretch post-workout, however, and so I maintained my routine for these cases.
I think my personal experience ties into the history of the activity itself. The first person in human history to stretch was probably unable to move thanks to very tight muscles. I bet he pulled a hamstring anytime he squatted down to go to the bathroom! Once he started stretching, he found himself better able to exercise (hunt), move about (gather), and remain injury free (not get eaten by a tiger). Others likely observed the success of this stretching routine and began stretching themselves. The infinite wisdom of - you ever see a cheetah stretch? - gave way to - you ever see a man outrun a cheetah without stretching? Soon, every athlete was stretching before exercise and every coach was urging the next generation to do the same.
I suspect stretching reached a critical moment when it became associated with successful exercise (perhaps sometime in the last twenty years when any yo-yo could ‘go online’, start a crap blog, and write knowledgeably about anything). People with no exercise experience saw fitter people doing it and concluded that they too required A Good Stretch to warm up the muscles before exercise. People who exercise would know best about exercise, right? Eventually, people started to over-stretch, onlookers were prompted to comment on the ‘negatives’ of stretching, and I overheard a quip about runners doing yoga.
Now, I’m no exercise expert. I’m sure your local village/town/city has a physical trainer with a far better answer than anything I've ever written here. When I was struggling with yet another running injury a year ago, I surprisingly heeded my own advice and sought out the wisdom of a local trainer (albeit second-hand through my younger brother). In the same way proper medical professionals say ‘wash your hands’, the physical trainer’s advice was simply ‘make sure to stretch’. So, I started stretching again and, miracle of miracles, started to feel better while running.
What’s really going on when there is a backlash of false information against an obvious and widely agreed upon best practice? Part of it is due to the creep effect I described above. As powerful solutions are applied to increasingly less important problems, the cost-effectiveness ratio moves slowly toward zero. Those who recognize when the costs exceed the benefits must remember this invalidates only the fringe applications and not the original case.
Another explanation to consider is how examples tend to self-select. A person who chooses to regularly wash hands might be the sort of person who is already germ-conscious and is cleaner to begin with when compared to the average person. Such people will suffer the costs of excessive hand-washing before someone who washes up just once a week (on Sunday, whether they need to or not).
The same applies for stretching. Those who stretch are more likely to be flexible than those who do not stretch. These people are likely closer to the threshold for being ‘overstretched’ than those who’ve never stretched. Measuring the effects of stretching without distinguishing these groups is like studying the effects of an extra beer without first separating those who’ve been drinking since noon from those who are stone-sober.
The best recommendation I can give for stretching is the same I would give for hand washing. First, establish some basic rules of thumb for when to definitely do it. Second, do the same for when to definitely NOT do it (1). And for the cases that fall in between, well, try not to stress out too much - as long as the major cases are taken care of, the little stuff isn't worth sweating over.
Footnotes / public health announcement
0. Now, I'm no scientist, part three...
Reader, wash your hands during flu season.
1. What about these rules, then?
Third, save these rules for a future blog post.
I should clarify my position on the 'in-between' cases, however. Since the cases in-between are those where the cost-benefit balance is close to equal, I would recommend not doing much thinking - just flip a coin if you want. I'm sure there is a good case for learning to make the right decisions in those examples, of course, but I find life is much simpler when I make those decisions, quickly, on a case-by-case basis and move on to something more productive rather than worrying about getting each one exactly right through some overcooked analysis.
