###### Abstract  
The aim of this review was to provide an overview of the recent findings on the acute and chronic effects of static stretching on joint behaviors and neuromuscular responses and to discuss the overall effects of acute and chronic static stretching on selected outcomes via meta-analyses, using a total of 50 recent studies. The results of our meta-analyses demonstrated that acute static stretching results in increased range of motion (ROM), decreased passive resistive torque (PRT), increased maximum tolerable PRT (PRT\({}_{\text{max}}\)), decreased maximum voluntary isometric torque, decreased muscle-tendon unit stiffness, decreased muscle stiffness, decreased tendon stiffness, and decreased shear elastic modulus. Moreover, the chronic effects of static stretching included increased ROM, increased PRT\({}_{\text{max}}\), decreased muscle stiffness, and decreased shear elastic modulus (or shear wave speed). These results suggest that static stretching interventions have the potential to increase ROM and reduce the mechanical properties of muscle-tendon tissue, but they may not change corticospinal excitability and spinal reflex excitability or muscle architecture parameters.  
neural excitability; motor evoked potential; reflex response; muscle architecture; fascicle length; pennation angle; muscle thickness; muscle/tendon stiffness; shear elastic modulus +
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instance, muscle architectural parameters (e.g., fascicle length, pennation angle, muscle thickness) are important determinants of muscle function (such as force-generating capacity and shortening velocity) [11; 12; 13]. It has also been suggested that muscular contraction performance appears to be influenced by an interaction between contractile and passive connective tissues (e.g., stiffness of muscle/tendon tissues) in a pennate muscle [14; 15; 16; 17; 18]. Additionally, muscle bulging condition (e.g., the material properties of extracellular connective tissues, transverse loading) can also change muscle performance [19; 20; 21; 22; 23]. Therefore, it is essential to understand whether and to what extent the neuromuscular factors could respond to static stretching.  
Although a large body of studies have been carried out to understand the effects of stretching, most of the review articles in the literature have primarily focused on mechanical outputs (e.g., one-repetition maximum, maximum muscle strength, muscle power) or performance measures (e.g., vertical jump height, sprint running time, rate of force/torque development, electromechanical delay) [2; 24; 25; 26; 27]. Several review studies have addressed the effects of static stretching on neural or muscular responses, but these studies only focused on either the neural or mechanical responses or acute or chronic effects of static stretching [28; 29; 30; 31]. In addition, few review studies have considered outcome measures using shear wave ultrasound elastography (e.g., shear wave velocity, shear elastic modulus), although it has been applied to quantify the effects of static stretching on muscle stiffness over the past decade [32; 33; 34; 35; 36; 37; 38; 39; 40; 41; 42; 43; 44; 45; 46; 47].  
The aim of this review was to provide an overview of the recent findings on the acute and chronic effects of static stretching on joint behaviors (e.g., range of motion, joint torque) and neuromuscular responses (e.g., motor evoked potentials, reflex responses, muscle architecture, muscle stiffness, tendon stiffness, shear elastic modulus) and to discuss the overall effects of acute and chronic static stretching on the aforementioned outcomes across the studied articles via meta-analyses. The findings of this review could help clinicians obtain a more complete picture of the effects of acute and chronic static stretching on neuromuscular properties, potentially providing the foundation for designing a more subject-specific, effective protocol that might improve neuromuscular responses.