Stretching or Mobilising: What are they for?

After years of having static stretching drilled into us at school and youth sport there is currently a shift in thinking with some claiming to scrap "static stretching" all together!
The research focus on this area is often around creating a performance gains or predicting injury as an outcome.

Long duration static holds have been found to be poor predictors of injury in sport, correlate to reduced performance pre-activity and boring to do. Research does show that static stretching can create decreased stiffness in the muscle-tendon unit (MTU), potentially by neural relaxation leading to increased joint range of motion (ROM). For a relaxing or lengthening outcome this is still an option.

More recently there has been a move towards dynamic stretching/mobility and soft tissue mobilisation through massage or foam rolling. These are shown to still elicit increases in joint ROM but without decreasing the stiffness of the MTU. This is an important factor as increased MTU stiffness has been associated with positive performance outcomes and better at predicting injury rates.

I still believe there is a place for static stretching though if you have particular MTU stiffness at an extreme that becomes more detrimental to physical health. You would need to find a health or fitness professional to assess the necessity of static stretching for this reason.
For the most part dynamic mobility exercises are your go to for improving functional performance and are much more enjoyable. Less enjoyable but equally important is foam rolling 😉