“Re: Re: Daniel's Back on His Bike”

But that's not why I said it. In cycling, unlike in tennis, the muscle movement is quite restricted - short of coming off the bike, it's almost impossible to overextend any muscle.

As such, there's little value in 'warming up' the muscles for cycling by stretching before hand - apart from undoing the damage that shouldn't be there coz you didn't stretch after you'd exercised last time. (Better to warm up the muscles on the bike)

The reason for stretching afterwards is about attempting to relax all the muscle fibres - re-align any that have got themselves into a 'knot'. It's not pleasant to discover that there's a knot, you weren't aware of, deep inside a muscle (leading indirectly to a tendon injury) - several very painful physio sessions working that knot out convinced me of the benefits of stretching after training.

I've got limited time - I struggle to fit stretching in as it is. So I stretch after. The stretches will have a better effect on relaxing the muscle when it's 'warm' rather than 'cold'.

As an aside, there have been a few studies recently which have failed to find any injury preventing benefits of stretching prior to exercise (such as running). But it's probably to early to rely on that evidence to give up stretching for such sports if it works for you (it's a slightly counterintuitive result).

cheers, Christopher