“You must stretch.” Weight trainers, exercisers, and athletes have been told that increasing the flexibility of a muscle-tendon body part makes exercise more efficient and may help you prevent injury or muscle soreness. Stretching is often recommended to be included in a warm-up and cool-down phases of exercise.1

The strange thing is, over the years, the benefits were taken so much for granted that we forgot to study stretching in a scientific manner to see whether the benefits stacked up to expectation.