Welcome to the newest Discover Strength Podcast Mini-Series where we will focus on 12 things we think are essential to getting better results from your workouts in less time. Join us as we go deeper on each topic in a format that's perfect for sharing and broadening your own knowledge. Thanks for joining us, and please enjoy this week’s episode on stretching.

If you want to get stronger, you need to strength train. If you want to get more flexible, you need to stretch... right? This is a common thought in the fitness industry and a pervasive belief in the entire health and wellness space.

For a long time, strength training has been associated with muscle bound "tight" physiques, while stretching is how you get bendy, flexible and long lean muscles. If you want to be well rounded, you need to do both. But what does the research actually say about the benefits of strength training on range of motion benefits and improvements in flexibility.

It turns out, that an abundance of recent literature points to the fact that this long held belief of stretching versus strength training, might not be the case at all. In fact, research seems to show that strength training through a full range of motion (similar to what you would do at Discover Strength), results in near identical results to a traditional "stretching program".

Does this mean we shouldn't stretch? Not necessarily. It simply means that there's additional benefits to resistance training beyond improvements in strength and hypertrophy which include drastic increases in flexibility. This is great news for people who like stretching and for those who don't.

It means your strength training workouts you do at Discover Strength, lead to fantastic increases in flexibility, so every time you workout, you're killing two birds with one stone. It also means if flexibility is one of your goals, strength training may be a great option, as it offers the added benefit of also increasing strength and hypertrophy (among a myriad of other benefits), while ALSO making you more flexible.

So stretch if you enjoy it, or don't if you don't. But DEFINITELY strength train to see improvements in strength, hypertrophy, AND flexibility. 

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