The 9 Best Stretches to Do After Running

If you crave a satisfying post-run stretch but tend to lose interest after a few half-hearted toe touches, it's time to update your routine with purposeful, ‌effective‌ stretches that won't add much time to your workout.

To determine which running stretches are worthwhile and how to properly execute them, we spoke with Grayson Wickham, DPT, physical therapist and founder of Movement Vault, a stretching app and website.

A post-workout stretching routine delivers myriad benefits for runners, Wickham tells LIVESTRONG.com‌,‌ including better joint stability and range of motion. Stretching may also help prevent injuries by addressing muscle imbalances and improving proprioception (aka body awareness), he explains.

"Stretching won't fully eradicate your chances of getting injured, but it is going to decrease it," he says. "When you're doing active stretching, you're improving the mind-muscle connection," which, he explains, is often diminished by our daily activity, or lack thereof. "I even see it in people who are working out a lot and have been working out for years. We sit so much as humans. We're hunched over our desks, our phones, our books, and we're just not getting enough varied active movements in our days. We lose touch with certain muscles."

Stretching may also bolster recovery by "resetting" your nervous system after a long run or intense interval workout. There are two sides to the nervous system, Wickham explains. There's the sympathetic, which is associated with fight or flight, and that's basically what you're going to be in during most of your workout, he says. And then there's the parasympathetic, which is associated with rest and digestion.

"So, if you're doing some kind of post-run stretching and getting some good diaphragmatic breathing, that's going to increase your parasympathetic nervous system drive, which is going to be overall better for recovery," he says.

However, the type of post-run stretches you do matter. Wickham is a proponent of end-range isometrics, or active stretching, which differs from static or passive stretching. In passive stretching, you relax into a stretch and let gravity take over. "Active stretching is stretching out that muscle or joint and then contracting the muscles while they're maximally stretched out," Wickham explains.

So, for example, during a passive hamstring stretch, you may prop your foot up on a bench and bend over your leg. An active variation of that same stretch would also include a 10-second contraction of the hamstring, the muscle being stretched, by squeezing the hamstring for 10 seconds then releasing it. "When you're loading the joint while it's maximally stretched out, you're also sending an input to the nervous system to say, 'Hey, I'm safe in this position,'" Wickham says.

Below are Wickham's top picks for how to loosen tight muscles after running, improve your range of motion and feel better in between runs. Perform one round of each leg stretch as a full-body mobility circuit, or choose a few cooldown stretch to incorporate into your current post-run stretch routine.