Lifting Weights Can Increase Flexibility Similar to Stretching

Caveats apply, but this is good news for my fellow meatheads

I hate stretching. This is likely because I’m not naturally that flexible and we sapiens tend to enjoy doing what we’re good at.

Thankfully, some research has shown that static stretching isn’t mandatory to increase your range of motion.

Does this mean stretching is useless? Or that all you need to do is lift in order to increase your range of motion?

First answer: Of course not.

Second answer: Of course not again. But strength training is one of several effective ways to increase your range of motion.

Study Reviewed

A new meta-analysis was recently published on the topic (1). Here are some details below:

• Studies separately compared resistance training with controls, stretching or a combo of resistance training and stretching on range of motion outcomes.
• Fifty-five studies with 2756 subjects with an average age of 23.9 (standard deviation of 6.3) and an age range of 8–78 made up the sample.
• Joints tested for range of motion were the elbow, hips, knee, shoulder and trunk.
• Resistance training exercises included…