To stretch or not to stretch

From today's New York Times:

Should you stretch before a run? That question, which has prompted countless academic studies, debates and inter-running-partner squabbles, is now at the heart of a notable new study published in August on the Web site of USA Track and Field, the sport’s national governing body. The study, one of the largest of its kind, involved almost 1,400 runners, from age 13 to past 60, who were assigned randomly to two groups. The first group did not stretch before their runs, while otherwise maintaining their normal workout routine: the same mileage, warm-up (minus any stretching) and so on. The second group stretched, having received photographs and specific instructions for a series of simple, traditional poses, like leaning over and touching toes, that focused on the calf, hamstring and quadriceps muscles. The volunteers were told to hold each stretch for 20 seconds, a technique known as static stretching. The entire routine required three to five minutes and was to be completed immediately before a run.

The volunteers followed their assigned regimens for three months. Predictably, since running, as a sport, has a high injury rate, quite a few became injured during the three months. About 16 percent of the group that didn’t stretch were hobbled badly enough to miss training for at least a week (the researchers’ definition of a running injury), while about 16 percent of the group that did stretch were laid up for at least a week. The percentages, in other words, were virtually identical. Static stretching had proved to be a wash in terms of protecting against injury. It “neither prevented nor induced injury when compared with not stretching before running,” the study’s authors concluded, raising the obvious corollary, so why in the world do so many of us still stretch?

See the rest of article here. Or if you can't be bothered, here's the conclusion: "An ideal preworkout routine consists of a very easy warm-up, followed by a gradual increase in intensity and then dynamic stretching." (And if you don't understand "dynamic stretching", well, see the article.)