What are the real dangers of ballistic stretching? Does anybody use ballistic stretching methods?

In my home dojang and from sport lessons at school I was always told that its bad because it is easy to tear the muscles and cause injury, and that its not the most effective method of increasing flexibility. However at a new school I'm training at, ballistic stretching, or at least bouncing the stretch, is the main method (and sometimes the only method) used in class. I'm tentative to actually stretch this way but obviously have to if the instructor says so. Anything I can do to limit the chances of injury?

The objective of stretching is to increase the movement of a joint by causing an elongation of the muscle tissue involved in the stretch.

"Ballistic stretching uses muscle contractions to force muscle elongation through bobbing movements where there is no pause at any point in the movement. Although the bobbing movement quickly elongates the muscle with each repetition, the bobbing also activates the stretch relex (or knee jerk) response. Since the stretch relex stimulates the muscle groups to contract after the stretch is finished, ballistic stretching is usually discouraged." (Source: "Stretching Anatomy" by Arnold G Nelson and Jouko Kokkonen, p. vi)

That is, by activating a contraction the ballistic stretch works contrary to the objective above and doesn't help you become more flexible.

Ballistic stretching shouldn't be confused with 'dynamic stretching" which is quickly working the limb through a full range of motion by doing a sport specific movement (e.g. the straight leg front kicking motion from floor to head you see Bruce Lee do in Enter the Dragon (or maybe it was Return of the Dragon, I get confused sometimes ))

Bottom line: your instructor is wrong and I have never seen any research that backs up ballistic stretching as a good idea. To minimize damage - don't bounce. Instead do a standard static stretch, relax into it, hold it for a few seconds and then slowly come out of it. Because you do the move slowly the 'knee jerk' response mentioned above doesn't happen. I wouldn't bring this up to your instructor unless he seems VERY open to discussing such things. Most folks in my experience that don't bother to do rudimentary research on what they teach usually aren't real interested in other ideas.

If your instructor is wedded to ballistic stretching and fusses at you if you don't do it, then you can refer him to the book above or most any 'sports science' book on stretching (these are normally found in the 'nutrition / health' sections of a book store rather than in the sports section). If he's not interested then get a different instructor, as if he's incompetent in this area then he's probably incompetent in other areas as well.

Sorry for the harsh tone but this is a button with me. I really wish folks wouldn't take such trash for granted when so much research is readily available via the internet and popularized technical books.

Hope this helps.

I would take John's advise here.

However, in the past, I was under the impression that ballistic stretching wasn't bad, as long as it was done properly. I always thought of the stretch kick as a ballistic stretch, but I guess it isn't.

If one was going to do ballistic stretching, then I would think that it would not be done at max stretch, like with other flexibility exercises, which would minimize the chance for injury.

I don't do ballistic stretches, though, so I would go with John on this one. I just kind of view it like the old-fashion sit-up; is it bad for you, or do that many people just do it wrong?

Thanks John,

Thats exactly what I thought was the problem with ballistic stretching. My home instructor is always saying don't do it and do things like PNF stretching or just static stretching instead however my new instructor (runs the university club) makes us do it. He counts each bounce too so there isn't much opportunity for me to do a more relaxed version or else I will skip the counts.

I've never done ballistic stretching and honestly this is the first time I'm hearing about it unless I've seen someone else do it and didn't know this was what it was actually called. With my history of injuries it sounds like something I should not attempt anyway. I'll stick to the traditional methods.