Is stretching before or after exercise useful?

Before you embark on a rigorous exercise regimen, you are normally advised to follow certain pre-exercising instructions scrupulously.

One of these instructions stresses upon doing stretching exercises and light warm-ups before the actual strenuous work-outs.

The idea is to flex your body with such light exercises before going in for the big one. And while terminating your session, you have to stretch all over again. This is also supposed to prevent stiffness and soreness or any injury during exercises.

But recent studies have shown that stretching before or after exercise has little or no effect on muscle soreness in young healthy adults. The researchers do, however, believe that there is a need to see whether stretching can have an effect on people in the community who have reduced levels of flexibility.