I was contacted recently by a friend of mine who is training for the Marine Corps Marathon who is in a lot of pain from her hip flexor. It is causing a good deal of discomfort and she is concerned that she won't be able to run the marathon. I noticed that she was getting a lot of advice to stretch it. A lot.
This really concerned me. {So I did a video about it posted below.}
Stretching....worse thing you can do to a tight, aggravated, inflamed, overworked, pissed off muscle. Because when you try to stretch a muscle like this, it will only get tighter, more aggravate, and more inflamed because it will try to decelerate the motion. It will try to prevent you even more from putting it into a place of greater injury and compromise.
So, when should you stretch? A few times a week when you are healthy and don't have an injury.
Stretch after you run or work out {not before} or better yet, stretch on your off or rest day.
There are more goodies in the video... watch on!