Jozy Altidore, American professional soccer player, states, “The best athletes in any sport take stretching very seriously before and after matches. Stretching is instrumental in any athlete’s physical success.” Stretching is not just beneficial for sports that require flexibility, such as gymnastics, but is an important component for any sport. Many athletes do not think they need to stretch, however that thinking causes injuries, over worked muscles and stress on the body. Stretching is such a critical part of success as an athlete that for some coaches and trainers this has become a focal point in the training. There are several types of stretching but two main stretching modalities that are typically used with athletes: static stretching and dynamic stretching. …show more content…
During the pre-activity warm-up, implementing dynamic stretching is preferred to static stretching in order to increase range of motion and flexibility and help prevent injury, reduce stress without compromising muscle readiness and improve skill and athletic performance. Prior to starting a stretching routine, one should do light aerobic exercises for warm up to increase the blood flow into the muscles and to wake the muscles up. “The aim of this phase [warm-up] is to increase heart rate, blood flow, deep muscle temperature, respiration rate and perspiration and decrease viscosity of joint fluids.” (Haff and Triplett 318) By warming up the muscles, it allows the muscles to expand when stretching thereby increasing flexibility and range of motion which will help to prevent
Whatever type of sports or activity you do, a flexible muscle can increase your chances of having a better performance and result.
...ic to get focused in on their match, and to motivate them as well. As mentioned, most importing reason for doing a warm up is to prevent injury during competition. Warming up the muscles will prevent injuries such as hamstring tears and other types muscle strains.
The amount your stick can flex is dependent on the amount of force you apply. The energy is released from the stick when it unbends into the puck, accelerating it. Choosing the right stick for your weight and technique can improve your shot.
It doesn’t take long to lose your flexibility but it can take even longer to win it back so if you want to keep your muscles feeling new and young, make stretching part of your daily routine. Stretching can help improve flexibility, and, range of movement in your joints. As you get older, your muscles naturally lose the strength and mass and can become less flexible and cause it to be stiffer. It is important to have your muscles in good condition to gain the flexibility it needs to prevent injury. Being flexible is beneficial for everyday life; it allows you to push your body beyond the comfort zone it is use to, causing it to increase your overall physical ability.” There are many rea...
The three main reason why stretching is so beneficial to a runners body is: it reduces the risk of injury, prevents muscle soreness after exercise, and it improves athletic performance. What is actually happening to the body during a stretch is very complex. Each muscle contains stretch receptors which attach themselves to the working part of the muscle called, muscle fibers. The stretch receptors measure the degree of the stretch, sending a message through the spinal cord to the nerves that control the contraction of the muscle where the receptors are. As the runner stretches more intensely the receptors begin to send out pulses harder and more rapidly. These pulses exceed a certain frequency, and the stretched muscle contracts and shortens, preventing overstretching.
The protocols were designed to determine and compare the effects of one or more of the following conditions; only warm-up (WU), no preparation, warm-up and static stretching (WUS), only stretching. All the subjects are instructed to only perform their regular activity such as working or studying and not exercise or stretch before testing (2*). The WU protocol of each consisted of a 12 minute protocol consisting of jogging distances varying from 800m to 1000m followed by several drills and body weight exercises. The stretching protocol includes hamstring stretch, triceps surae stretch, quadriceps stretch (3*). Both within subjects and between subjects’ experimental designs are used across the articles. After the protocols, the athletes are asked to perform sprints ranging from 40m to 100m to their best ability. Multiple trials are taken in order to get a mean value. The times were recorded using electronic timing gate systems. For the outdoor trials, wind speed and direction are recorded according to International Association of Athletics Federations
When stretching, it is easier to stretch a muscle that is relaxed than to stretch a muscle that is contracting. By taking advantage of the situations when reciprocal inhibition does occur, you can get a more effective stretch by inducing the antagonists to relax during the stretch due to the contraction of the agonists. You also want to relax any muscles used as synergists by the muscle you are trying to stretch. For example, when you stretch your calf, you want to contract the shin muscles (the antagonists of the calf) by flexing your foot. However, the hamstrings use the calf as a synergist so you want to also relax the hamstrings by contracting the quadricep (i.e., keeping your leg straight).
Before you even start lifting weights, strength and conditioning coaches would advocate for players to do a dynamic warm ups instead of static stretches. Dynamic warm ups are series of sports specific movement preparing the body for maximum exertion of a workout allowing your joints and muscles to be limber as possible, while static stretching wants you to stretch out as far as you can and hold it for 15 seconds which is advocated at the end of each workout allowing the body to cool down. The reason why static stretching is advocated after your workout is because your muscles are already warmed up which allows your muscles and joints to stretch as far as possible without tearing. An example of a dynamic warm up and a static stretch is to take two rubber bands and stick one in the freezer; the rubber band in the freezer represents a static stretch and the other rubber band represents a dynamic warm up. When you take the rubber band out of the freezer and try to stretch it as far as possible it will break instantly because it is cold but the other rubber band which is warm would be super springy because it’s warm enough allowing you to keep stretching but return back to its normal state without tearing
It can be stated that eccentric or concentric contractions can result in changes of a hamstring muscles length up to one third (Bennell et al., 1998). In sport discipline such as football hamstring injuries occur in a great degree during activities such as running or sprinting. This can be supported by the English FA which reported that in football movements such as running and sprinting stands for of 57% of all hamstring strains (Woods et al., 2004; Figure). During aforementioned activities the most common injury place is the bicep femoris along with the muscle tendon junction (Cross et al.,
The study of biomechanics has made abundant contributions to sport over many years which have been applied to improve athletes’ physical performance. The knowledge of human movement and how internal and external forces of the body influence movement has been used to enhance performance by finding methods of change to technique which can improve the overall performance of an athlete and also in finding the mechanisms that affect the occurrence of sports injury (Bartlett, 2002, p 2). The most common method for improving performance in any sport is by improving the technique, which can be achieved by first applying a biomechanical analysis giving detailed analysis of sports movements. A biomechanical analysis is important as it allows for the
The body was designed to perform a variety of tasks while actively using muscles. Sustained muscle activity robs the muscles of life giving blood flow. It is very important to actively stretch during breaks to flush out toxins that build up in the muscles that were used for sustained posture.
"Flexibility Training... Stretching For Sport And Athletes." Phil Davies' Sports Fitness Advisor - Get Fit for Sport & Life. Web. 03 June 2010. .
Everyone can stretch regardless of age of flexibility. You do not need to be in good shape or be an athlete to be able to stretch. Stretching feels good when done correctly. You do not have to push your limits to progress in an effective stretch routine. Neither should it be a contest to see how far you can stretch. This will most often lead to injury. Rather stretching should feel more relaxing than anything, and should not feel uncomfortable in any way. If there is pain during a stretch then that is a good sign there is something wrong. If you stretch and exercise regularly, than you will learn to enjoy it more and more.
The skipping has been a major exercise technique for many athletes in the sport such as boxing, tennis, running and martial arts. Skipping become popular among the athlete because that the one of method that can maintain cardiovascular health and increase fitness in a faster way. It also can perform as a stretching after doing a light aerobic activity as a feature of a pre-exercise warm-up. While stretching, it’s has been showed as a successful means to increase range of movement (ROM) about the joint and is normally to decrease muscle soreness, reduce or prevent the danger of harm coming about because of tight musculature, and rehabilitation after injury [1].
...er training has been completed and while the muscles are still warm. It helps to improve the flexibility of basket ball players as well as assists in the variety of movements that can be completed after static stretching. Examples of static stretching used by individuals playing basketball is stretching the quadriceps , triceps and hamstring and many more. An article written in the European Journal of Applied Physiology;Nov2011, Vol. 111 Issue 11, p2633 states the following “ Sports that necessitate a high degree of static flexibility should use short duration static stretches with lower intensity stretches in a trained population to minimize the possibilities of impairments.” This article is therefore evident of the importance of static stretching for basketball players due to its prevention of problems that may occur of the muscles during a game of basketball.