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Comment by civilaircraft | Hacker News Reader

On the same topic, I highly recommend the new book Built to Move that can benefit all of us desk workers.

I'm reading that now as well. One of the interesting things so far is the author asserts that stretching does nothing for you, which I find controversial and doesn't align with my experience but I also don't have any evidence or reason per-se to contradict that claim either.

I do know that a 15-minute "stretch routine" should either substitute or incorporate push-ups, squats, and other, similar basic movements in the routine. Stretching on its own is quite pointless if it's also coupled with continued sitting the entire day and not much other physical activity (walking, weight lifting, running, swimming, sports, w/e).

>the author asserts that stretching does nothing for you

I'm struggling to find a response to this. My personal results from daily stretching are so profound but could be written off as "anecdotal". I'd find it very hard to take this person seriously unless there was some caveat or qualifying information.

I could see "it does nothing for you" for some set of things, but it cannot possibly be absolutely true. For one thing, stretching has been very successful in increasing my range of motion. It may be, however, that it e.g. doesn't do much for reducing, say, back pain or improving overall health outcomes

It clearly does something, but it's possible that in the context of the claim it does indeed do "nothing" (nothing, or so close to nothing that it might as well be nothing, to affect the specific things in question)

That was my response as well, though I'd say that if you find that to be troublesome you can just ignore that from the book and just look at the rest of the, in my opinion from reading so far, good material. I was honestly very surprised to see that. I guess, I don't discount everything that someone says if I think they're wrong about a specific thing, and in sports science there seems to be a lot that is continuing to be discovered and argued about. It's a fluid field.

I will say throughout my life I have heard a lot of conflicting advice on stretching. "Don't stretch before working out", "Don't stretch after working out", etc. and I personally just do dedicated yoga sessions with deep/long poses for my stretching and that's it. I'm not sure "the science is settled" there so to speak, but my own personal results suggest that stretching is beneficial and helps prevent injury.

The author is Kelly Starrett, a legend in the physical therapy/movement world. I've read a lot of his work.

I don't think his message is that stretching "does nothing". It's more that, research has shown that combining stretching with strength (using the range of motion) is the way to create lasting change.

I may be misremembering but I thought his wife and him (since they are co-authors) explicitly said something along the lines of don't even bother wasting time stretching. It's near or at the beginning of the first chapter. "Do it if it makes you feel good but it's a waste of time" or something. Please correct me if I'm misremembering or outright incorrect. I don't have the book nearby to check.

Historically his perspective was that it wasn't necessary. If you're getting full range of motion exercise, you don't need to stretch, because the exercise itself is doing what needs to be done.

> If you're getting full range of motion exercise, you don't need to stretch, because the exercise itself is doing what needs to be done.

I dropped powerlifting when gyms closed in 2020. I picked it back up recently. With a garage gym it's now so easy to lift without so much dang ceremony, just warm up through the exercises themselves. Sessions all under an hour, PRed all three lifts at my meet, and never got a red light on squats when I used to get one for depth on one side all the time. Stretching is all time fake in my book.

Right. Personally I've observed my squat form and ROM are much better if I stretch my hamstrings first. So I stretch first to get more benefit from the exercise.

I bet it changes based on a few factors including age, prior mobility, etc. I do a few things at my current age:

  I wear Vibram "toe-shoes" so that my heel isn't lifted off the ground when I squat or do other movements and unless I'm lifting very heavy I go below parallel
  I warm up by doing either some prescribed warm-ups or by getting on the air bike/rowing for a few minutes + other warm-up activities
  I do the exact exercise movement I'm going to be doing if it's a movement like a snatch, clean and jerk, deadlift, squat, etc. to warm-up

I don't do any stretching before or after. It's absolutely fascinating that so many different things work for so many people.

yeah your hamstrings might not be so tight, you may have different ratios in your leg bones, who knows! lots of anatomical variation

Mankind has pushed boundaries far beyond anyone’s wildest imaginations in countless scientific fields.

Yet in 2023, there’s no consensus on stretching. Boggles the mind.

You say stretching as if it's simple. But there's plenty of components it affects that are anything but. Hell, the importance fascia is only just really getting unravelled.

Plenty of opportunity to further humanity's knowledge on a subject there.

In the other hand regular running (w/o stretching) has fixed all my back pain.

Being more active in general (walking or running) should alleviate some back pain. Stretching alone wouldn't and shouldn't be expected to because the problem isn't "my muscles need to stretch" it's "my muscles need to be in use" and they need to be in use in a full-body context, not in isolation.

Glad to see you've found something that has helped with your back pain. I've been taking more walks now that my life has gotten a little less chaotic and the weather is warmer and what do you know? There goes the back pain. Standing desk helps too but it's mostly the walking.

any reasons to recommend this book? and what were your big takeaways?

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