Even the NFL uses static stretching in their pregame warmups. Shouldn’t they know that static stretching decreases power? I dont think Ive ever seen a team warmup without static stretching.
Alot of the teams haven’t had much time to jog first so static- often in the locker room- then on field for drills etc.
Always great to hear from the master. But what would your opinion be if they did have time. Why not just do a dynamic warmup first before anything? But one thing is for sure is that there are a lot of coaches that dont know about static stretching decreasing power.
Recent research suggests that the increase in sprint and power is only good for about 5 minutes, after that results are equal to that of static stretching. Unless an athlete is about to run a sprint (40 yd, 100m), there is no need to do a dynamic warm up to get an increase in power.
Take the findings with the fact that after the stretch, most athletes spend a good amount of time doing position specific drills to increase body temp and to break a sweat. This should provide enough warm-up to get them ready to go.
What you don’t see is guys doing a full static stretch routine, or even a full dynamic warm-up when they come off the bench during a change of possession. This is because they often dont have time.
I think the research lead to a lot of coaches through the baby out with the bathwater and overreacting.
I don’t know what the parameters of this particular piece of research were but I think the potentially negative effects of static stretching are largely dependent upon both the duration and the magnitude of the stretches. That is, if held for too long(I’m not sure just how long, however though I typically limited stretches to 30 sec or under) and the athlete really attempts to push the stretch past the normal end position, the potential negative effect can last well past 5 minutes.
In a literature review by Dr. Mike Stone from a few years ago, he said such a period can last over an hour.
As long as the stretch period is limited and as CF has stated, you don’t attempt to improve flexibility in warm-ups(as opposed to post training and post comp. situations)-only seeking to achieve normal ranges of motion, one should be fine.
I’m prob one of them. If the static stretch is easy, I’ve never found it to be a problem and my athletes always seemed to be able to deliver on the power side of things.
We usually did some static stuff just after jogging and more dynamic stuff as we went along. You can usually do a more dynamic warm-up as you get looser, when the workload decreases, by which time ANY stretch is easy, but do whatever works for you and fuck the gurus!
Getting caught up in BS rules is the surest way to decrease power (through self inflicted injury or tightness). I’m old enough to remember when dynamic was bad- now static’s verboten. Can’t wait to hear what’s next.
The effect of static, ballistic, and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation stretching on vertical jump performance.
J Strength Cond Res. 2007 Feb;21(1):223-6.
* Bradley PS,
* Olsen PD,
* Portas MD.
Sport and Exercise Group, University of Teesside, UK. paul.s.bradley@sunderland.ac.uk
The purpose of this study was to compare the acute effects of different modes of stretching on vertical jump performance. Eighteen male university students (age, 24.3 +/- 3.2 years; height, 181.5 +/- 11.4 cm; body mass, 78.1 +/- 6.4 kg; mean +/- SD) completed 4 different conditions in a randomized order, on different days, interspersed by a minimum of 72 hours of rest. Each session consisted of a standard 5-minute cycle warm-up, accompanied by one of the subsequent conditions: (a) control, (b) 10-minute static stretching, © 10-minute ballistic stretching, or (d) 10-minute proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching. The subjects performed 3 trials of static and countermovement jumps prior to stretching and poststretching at 5, 15, 30, 45, and 60 minutes. Vertical jump height decreased after static and PNF stretching (4.0% and 5.1%, p < 0.05) and there was a smaller decrease after ballistic stretching (2.7%, p > 0.05). However, jumping performance had fully recovered 15 minutes after all stretching conditions. In conclusion, vertical jump performance is diminished for 15 minutes if performed after static or PNF stretching, whereas ballistic stretching has little effect on jumping performance. Consequently, PNF or static stretching should not be performed immediately prior to an explosive athletic movement
Thanks for posting that. The lit. review I read was actually in one of the older Muscular Development mag. a few years ago before they had gone to their current format of hardcore bodybuilding. I think it was Stone and Brian Schilling but I’ll try to find it.
Unfortunately, they don’t indicate stretch magnitude- though, to be honest, I think it would take some time to find normal ranges of motion for an indiviual and then evaluate to what degree past the normal/baseline ROM they stretched during their tests, if at all.
By duration, they indicate 10 minutes of static stretching. Makes one wonder if they mean one particular stretch, one particular muscle group stretched or a large number of stretches done in that same time frame. I suspect the latter but of course even with that, you don’t really know how long any particular stretch was held.
If you don’t have it, CF’s GPP video has recomendations regarding static/dynamic/pnf stretching for warm-ups and how to incorporate all three into the warm-ups to best advantage.
I used to have athletes completely leave out static in their warm-ups and reserve them totally for the cooldowns or after meets. I think bringing them back into the program contributed not only to greater ROM’s-especially for max. velocity but also fewer nagging injuries. It also contributed to the normal/baseline ROM being much improved for all which I think improved performances. Also, by making it a bigger part of the training sessions, it seemed to make the muscles more ready to warm-up on a daily basis-by that I mean the athletes were able to warm-up easier and did not have to spend extra time to loosen up-less residual soreness from day to day.
The keys, in my opinion, are the duration and the magnitude of the stretches as well as the location of where they are placed in the warm-up. You can definitely hold too long but more importantly, I believe, push too far in warm-ups. Try to, as CF says, achieve a normal ROM in the warm-ups and reserve the attempts to improve ROM’s for the post training cooldowns.
Protocol:
Stretches: supine gastroc, butterfly, supine hamstring, prone quad, kneeling quad
Duration: Static=30 seconds
Stretches were repeated 4 times on each leg in alternating fashion for a total stretch time of 10 minutes
PNF: 5s contraction, 25 s stretch
Abstracts are not full articles. The full protocol is in the article itself, usually never in the abstract.
Stretching is not “warming-up.” Stretching increases ROM. The muscles need to move to warm up (actively) or with external heat (passively). Somewhere many coaches got confused about what a warm-up is and why it’s used.
Re:abstracts, I did not know if you had the full article available to post nor if all the specifics of the protocols were even cited not having seen it until this post.
Re:stretching not being the same thing(specifically) as warming-up. Yes, I’m fully aware of that. Stretches(static,pnf, dynamic, etc.) are merely components of various warm-up routines but should never be a substitute for movement, drills, elevation of the core temp., etc. but rather a part of a sequenced routine.
Is there anything on magnitude of the stretches performed in the study?
You are right, some people think that stretching IS a or rather the warm-up. This one has been around for years.
Ok, so who stretches within 15 minutes of their event? Especially in team sports… static stretching is only bad if you are a member of one of these studies where they stretch the shit out of you then make you do power tests a minute later.
The stretch was to full ROM each time.
I only have hard copy of the study. If anyone has NSCA access, you can download it there.
Thanks, I know you are only passing along what is written but I’m wondering what full ROM means, exactly? It could mean a normal, baseline ROM or something else. I question if they really pushed the stretches, as Mortac points out, which I believe would change the outcome of the results of the study.
If it’s a relatively easy stretch, no problem but if you are really pushing the stretch-beyond normal ROM’s(better reserved for the end of a workout/comp.) is where the negative effects of a static stretch can be more long lasting, as Stone/Schilling found.
I believe Stone’s paper was just a review of the available literature. His own work on warm-up isn’t out as far as I know.
Exactly, just a literature review which I said in my first post in the thread. By found, I meant through the review not through his own study.
I’m not sure which study or studies they cited in making that point about up to or slightly over an hour(or something similar to this) for baseline performances to return. I have this review somewhere.
Yes. It does work.