Flexibility (pierrejean)

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1

Hi,

Pierrejean, what do your athletes do for their flexibility? If I remember correctly, you said that Fasuba had tight adductors and he couldn’t some sort of mobility excercises. How did you solve this problem?

2

The sprinters have different level regarding flexibility (same for all the other motor abilities).

They stretch before and after workout and sometimes between sets of exercises.
I let them stretch what and how much they feel, sometimes i take the initiative to do some assisted stretch, or they somply ask for my assistance.
Olu is not only tight on the adductors, he is tight everywhere, so we have to keep that stiffness which part of makes him a talented sprinter, and he does a lot of static stretch (hold 10sec) during all of his warm-ups. To promote the blood flow, we used sit ups, press ups or short acceleration every circa 4 stretches. That’s the protocol i designed specifically for him when i met him, and i don’t use it for anybody else, because every sprinter has its own needs.

3

Hi PJ

10 second holds.

Was this just as a check for readiness for a session/competition or was it also used to improve range of movement as well?

4

Yes range of motion, and improvement in his flexibility was parallel with improvement of speed and overall readiness through the season, he has always been the most supple during the championships. Flexibility during static stretch, and elasticity during B skips were always our first signs of great shape on a given day.

5

Hey PJ

Thanks very much for the reply. It is just that the literature seems to indicate that static holds should be for at least 30 seconds to have effect (the shortest holds that I’ve read are 15 seconds). Is this because:

  1. 10 second holds are good enough and after this it becomes diminishing returns.

  2. Of the idea that there is a temporary loss of power that comes from static stretching, and because of this holds are kept to a minimum.

  3. That a number of sets of 10 second holds (say 6x10 second holds for each body part) add up to 2x30 second holds but without the loss of potentiation that is claimed to happen in point number 2.