The evidence-led answer
The short answer
Static stretching can produce a small immediate increase in range of motion, but it is not uniquely required. Prolonged holds can temporarily reduce isolated maximal force when tested immediately; updated evidence does not show an overall impairment in jumping, sprinting or athletic performance, so a blanket ban is not supported.
Two different things: warming up vs stretching
Static stretching holds a lengthened position; dynamic stretching uses controlled movement through a joint range. Either can appear in a warm-up, but neither is synonymous with the whole warm-up.
What stretching before exercise actually does
- Range of motion: a 2023 systematic review with pooled analysis found a single bout of stretching gives a small improvement in range of motion, not strongly changed by stretch intensity, technique, training status or sex.
- It is not special: a 2024 systematic review found no significant difference in range of motion, stiffness or passive torque between stretching or foam rolling and other warm up activities. If the goal is just to feel less stiff before training, several routes get you there.
Does it hurt your performance?
Prolonged static stretching can temporarily reduce isolated maximal force, particularly after holds of about 60 seconds or longer tested immediately. A 2024 controlled pooled analysis did not find an overall impairment in jumping, sprinting or athletic performance, and its own authors describe their position as balanced rather than one sided: they say they cannot recommend stretching before performance on current evidence, but that avoiding it altogether is equally without evidence. Brief holds within a fuller warm up are unlikely to make a meaningful practical difference.
Does it prevent injury?
Stretching has not been shown to reduce overall or overuse injury risk. The main review on this point found no clear effect on all cause or overuse injury, though it separately recommends stretching plus dynamic activity within a warm up for reducing muscle strain specifically; that is a different, narrower outcome and a different intervention (stretching combined with dynamic activity, not stretching alone), so this reads as two distinct findings rather than the review contradicting itself. A dated hamstring specific Cochrane review (7 trials, 1919 people) reached a similar not enough evidence conclusion; one of those seven trials tested a warm up and stretching protocol directly in distance runners and found no significant effect on hamstring injury. The bigger problem may be evidential rather than negative: a 2024 review of 300 stretching trials found only five had measured any injury outcome at all, and only about a third of those trials even published a statement on competing interests, so this is a thin and often opaque area of the literature, not simply a mixed one.
A simple evidence informed warm up
- Raise: begin with easy activity to lift temperature and heart rate.
- Mobilise: dynamic movements taking the joints you are about to use through their range (leg swings, hip circles, arm swings, bodyweight squats).
- Rehearse: build into the actual movement, lighter sets ramping towards your working load, or a few progressively faster strides before a run.
Dynamic stretching can be one part of a practical warm-up, but soccer-specific findings do not establish a universal formula. In low-certainty evidence, adding a conditioning activity after a comprehensive general warm-up produced only a trivial average incremental effect.
Flexibility as a separate goal
If greater range of motion is the goal, regular stretch training is one effective option. The review did not establish that stretching is the only route or that doing it while warm produces better long-term gains.
If something hurts
This article is general information, not medical advice. A stretch should feel like mild tension, not pain, stop at anything sharp or unusual. If you have a current or recurring injury, hypermobile joints, or a condition affecting connective tissue, get individualised advice rather than following a general routine.
Practical meaning
Begin with easy activity, use controlled movements through the ranges you need, then rehearse the activity at progressively greater effort. If a brief stretch helps, use it; do not mistake it for the whole warm-up or a general injury-prevention tool.
Limitations and uncertainty
Most evidence is acute and drawn from active, often young participants; a September 2026 search for general population (untrained) acute stretching data and for a non soccer dynamic warm up effectiveness review found neither, so both gaps remain open. Reviews overlap in authors and included trials: Behm, Kay, Blazevich, Konrad and Warneke recur across several of the performance and range of motion syntheses cited here. Injury outcomes are especially sparse (only 5 of 300 trials in one evidence gap review measured any injury outcome), and isolated maximal-force tests should not be generalised to all athletic performance. Separately, most of the underlying stretching literature does not report funding or conflicts of interest at all: a 2024 evidence-gap review of 300 trials found only about a third published a competing-interests statement and fewer than a fifth reported a funding source, so absence of a disclosed conflict in this field often reflects absence of reporting, not confirmed independence.
No product needed
This page is here to answer the question, not force a product.
Some research pages are deliberately product-free because adding a retailer link would not help the reader make a better decision. When a product is genuinely relevant, it appears after the evidence and is clearly labelled.