Stretching Can Be Part of a Warm-Up, but Injury Prevention Is a Different Question
Stretching can increase range of motion, but evidence does not establish that a stretch before one workout protects against injury in that session.
Wikis
Sports Injury Prevention
Sports injury prevention uses strategies to reduce injury risk or burden, with effects that depend on the program and population studied.
1
related articles
Open in Explore
Sports injury prevention is the use of strategies intended to reduce the occurrence or burden of injuries associated with sport and physical activity. The specific strategy depends on the injury, sport, population, and modifiable risk factors being addressed .1
Primary prevention is relatively consistently defined as preventing an initial injury or reducing injury risk before it occurs. In contrast, definitions of secondary prevention vary substantially and have included preventing recurrence, sequelae, or worsening, while tertiary prevention is used less often and often overlaps with secondary prevention. Studies should therefore define explicitly what level and outcome of prevention they mean .1
Prevention is distinct from injury surveillance. Surveillance uses standardized definitions and exposure information to describe which injuries occur and their patterns; prevention uses such evidence to design and evaluate protective strategies. Some multicomponent neuromuscular warm-up programs have reduced lower-limb injury rates in studied populations, but those findings apply to the tested programs and settings rather than to every warm-up .2,3
References
- Holm-Jensen A, Vlachos E, Storm LK, Myburgh C The Consistency of Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Prevention Definitions in the Context of Musculoskeletal Sports Injuries: A Rapid Review and Critical Exploration of Common Terms of Usage. Sports Medicine - Open. 2025. About this source DOI
- Bahr R, Clarsen B, Derman W, Dvorak J, Emery CA, Finch CF, Hägglund M, Junge A, Kemp S, Khan KM, Marshall SW, Meeuwisse W, Mountjoy M, Orchard JW, Pluim B, Quarrie KL, Reider B, Schwellnus M, Soligard T, Stokes KA, Timpka T, Verhagen E, Bindra A, Budgett R, Engebretsen L, Erdener U, Chamari K International Olympic Committee Consensus Statement: Methods for Recording and Reporting of Epidemiological Data on Injury and Illness in Sports 2020 (Including the STROBE Extension for Sports Injury and Illness Surveillance (STROBE-SIIS)). Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine. 2020. About this source DOI
- Herman K, Barton C, Malliaras P, Morrissey D The effectiveness of neuromuscular warm-up strategies, that require no additional equipment, for preventing lower limb injuries during sports participation: a systematic review. BMC Medicine. 2012. About this source DOI
From this collection
Articles