Is stretching a waste of time?

Stretching could help your pain, in certain cases. For most people, it's simply a waste of time.

Now I know that I will rustle a few feathers here. Many people believe that stretching is the nirvana of health…that if they could just touch their toes, their life would be so much better.
Maybe they bought into the idea in the 1970’s that stretching prevented injuries.

Some people will include 20-30 minutes of stretching into an hour and a half exercise routine. When questioned as to why they are stretching, they state that they are trying to prevent injuries. But their excises consist of walking on a treadmill, stairmaster, stationary bicycles or limited range of motion machines.

In these cases, there is virtually no risk of injuring a muscle or joint because you are never straining these structures.

If your workout consists of exercises similar to what I just mentioned, stretching will do nothing for you.

If you are trying to lose weight, you should spend your time doing an extra 20 minutes of cardiovascular exercise rather than stretching.

When there’s limited time, I assume you’ll want to get the most out of your time. I’m sure you don’t want to spend time in a gym and achieve minimal results. You want to get the best results for the time spent, right?

Well stretching just is a waste of your time.

For example, if you are walking for exercise, and you walk for 30 minutes and then stretch afterwards for 20 minutes, you are spending 50 minutes of your precious time exercising. You would be better off just walking for the whole 50 minutes and ignoring the stretching.
No one gets injured walking. You won’t sprain your hamstring or pull a muscle or develop a tear in a muscle from such a benign exercise.