Question: why are you looking at whether stretching before and after exercise is important?

Hannah Moir answered on 11 Mar 2016:

Thanks Niamh, hopefully I answered your question satisfactory during the chat, but anyone who may be interested. We want to see if therapies and processes we use to prevent injury and aid recovery and performance are actually beneficial or necessary. Some practices used in sport performance etc come from tradition and myth and we are trying to establish the evidence base for their use. We have found stretching before exercise does not necessarily reduce your risk of injury, but may increase flexibility but can reduce subsequent performance. We have also seen post exercise static stretching does not necessarily impact on exercise recovery and reduce soreness so some football teams no longer include this in their cool down and instead can focus time on other techniques and aspects.