Why do we need to stretch our muscles? In the wild we wouldn’t have time to stretch before running from danger so shouldn’t our bodies be ready to move optimally whenever needed?
In: Biology
This is interesting from ‘Survival of the Fittest’ by Mike Stroud:
> When you first start running, leg muscles are at only 37°C, or even a degree or so less on a cold winter’s day. Yet it is at 38°C that they work best. Of course, once you start running, you generate a lot of spare heat and the muscle temperatures rise, but this can take a couple of miles, even on a warm day, and through that distance you will not feel it. The reason for muscles working better when warmer is that their enzymes are set up to operate at the 38°C level, which is an interesting evolutionary choice. If we had evolved to be sprinters in temperate climes, we would have been better off if our muscles worked best at 37°C or even slightly cooler so that they were ready for action at any time. The fact that it takes a considerable distance to bring them up to operating temperature supports the view that our origins were warmer and our usual needs were for endurance rather than speed.
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