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- 2006
I've always been told stretching helps to elongate muscles (?) which is why I stretch religiously every morning. Also, in my pilates class, we stretch after each "set" and I've always assumed that was to stop muscle bulking in one area. Perhaps I've been misled.hYperTrOphY said:Who told you that?
Firstly, can you explain what you mean by "muscle build-up"? You increase the size of your muscle(s) through resistance. Damage to the muscle fibres results in subsequent muscular adaptation = hypertrophy. This is a gradual process. That is, your muscles do not increase in size (or "chunkiness") as you train, or directly after you train. The only change in size will be due to blood flow, commonly referred to as a 'pump'.
Strethching before or after will therfore not affect which muscle fibres have, or have not been activated; this is determined by the range of motion used during your training.
Stretching after you have properly warmed up and after training does have many benefits - however, making you leaner or "less chunky" is not, to my knowledge, one of them.