In this post, we discuss whether stretching or strengthening is the right approach when recovering from chronic or ongoing injuries.
Every week a client asks me the same question: “Should I be stretching more?”
They’ve been told by a well-meaning friend, a YouTube video, or a decade-old piece of advice that their tight hamstring, nagging shoulder, or chronic back pain is the result of muscles that simply need to be stretched.
My answer is always the same — and the science backs it up.
When it comes to recovering from ongoing or chronic injuries, strengthening is not just more effective than stretching, it’s in a different category entirely.
Chronic injuries are, at their core, a signal that the body doesn’t trust its current capacity to tolerate the loads that are being applied.
Stretching asks the nervous system to disregard that decision without offering any evidence to back it up.
Merely taking a joint into a position it doesn’t presently want to go does nothing to alter that calculation.
Strengthening provides the evidence.
It builds tissue capacity, recalibrates the threat response, and demonstrates to the body — from the cellular level to the cortical level — that it is capable, resilient, and safe to move.
If strengthening is like rebuilding the engine and the suspension of a car, stretching is the equivalent of adjusting the seat.
They are two entirely different things.