Stretching your muscles to improve flexibility is a widespread practice among competitive and recreational athletes. However, despite the widespread use and popularity of stretching exercises in sports with the aim to reduce the passive resistance of the muscle-tendon unit, to reduce injury risk and improve performance, there is limited or even a lack of documentation with respect to the mechanism and effect of this practice.
As a member of European College of Sports Sciences I thought let you guys know about the following published position statement that at least some of you may find useful for coaching or as a self-education purpose.
http://www.ecss.de/images/PDFs/EJSS_PosStat_Vol6,Iss2_2006b.pdf