Excerpt:
The evidence surrounding physical activity is clear: It's critical to good health, helping to ward off obesity, diabetes, heart disease, stroke and even dementia. Federal guidelines recommend at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity each week, but stress that any movement is better than none at all.
What's less clear is what needs to happen before – and after – all that movement. Should people be stretching? And if so, how much?
"The question is very controversial," said Dr. Kelley Gabriel, associate dean for research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health and a professor in the department of epidemiology. "We can't agree on this because there are so many kinds of stretching, and the reasons people stretch are so different. It's very hard to measure or study its effectiveness."