Is there a time of day when you shouldn't stretch your muscles?

livemint.com:

Lounge story titled, Is There A Perfect Way To Stretch?This piece is about whether those 90-120 seconds which we take to catch our breath between sets, might also be a good time to ease the muscles before using them again. One of the most cited researches on this was published in the Journal Of Strength And Conditioningfive years ago. Titled, Interset Stretching Vs. Traditional Strength Training: Effects on Muscle Strength and Size in Untrained Individuals, the study concluded that the interset stretching group gained more muscle mass than the group which did not stretch between sets.

But the key phrase in all of that is ‘untrained individuals’. And the first person to question this finding was fitness expert Menno Hanselmans. He cited another research which stated that reducing muscle stiffness between sets by stretching can also reduce muscle power output.

“In the new study, repetitions were equated between groups. Assuming the static stretching reduced strength, that would mean the inter-set stretching group was training harder to complete the same workload, and that may be the reason they gained more muscle," he wrote in a study review on his website. Hanselmanns also critiqued the first study’s use of stretch duration.

He claimed that the stated duration did not apply to trained individuals who were used to lifting load while their muscles were still fatigued with contraction during sets. But then there is legendary body-builder Frank Zane who said in an interview with Muscle & Fitness that one of his secrets to growth was a 15-second stretch between sets. But the three-time Mr.