Stretching

Stretching

Stretching is an essential part of injury free sport. A good stretching routine can help to minimize muscle imbalances, prevent injury, improve your exercise and your performance. If you have an injury, or a specific mechanical imbalance a more formal assessment and program fitting your needs is recommended.

When is the Best Time to Stretch?

When your muscles are warm and relaxed! Most sports require dynamic muscle use so you'll need both dynamic and static stretching. Dynamic stretches form part of your pre-game or pre-practice warm-up. Static stretches can be included at the end of your cool down or at other times to improve your overall fitness.

Pre-game/ pre-practice:

General warm up (5-10 minutes). The aim of a general warm-up is to get the blood flowing to all parts of the body to be used during your sport, including the cardiovascular system. An example warm up could include a jog, light skipping or riding an exercise bike.

Dynamic stretching.

Gradually the speed and intensity of your movement is increased. Technical and speed warm up. This includes high intensity, sport specific drills. Drills for speed and agility should be kept short with recovery time between drills to ensure you are not fatigued before your game.

Post-game/ post-training:

Cool down. A cool down allows the body, in particular the cardiovascular system, to gradually return to its resting state. A cool-down reduces your chances of becoming dizzy or faint after exercise, allows any waste such as lactic acid that has built up during exercise to dissipate and may reduce your chance of having Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS). Cool down, by gradually reducing your intensity, or walking or cycling on an exercise bike, for approximately 5 minutes.

Static stretches. Commence your stretching regime directly after a short cool-down, before the muscles have cooled completely.

Rules for Dynamic Stretching:

Warm up your muscles first, then stretch while your muscles are still warm.

Move through your range of movement, keeping control of the movement with your muscles. Do not allow momentum to control the movement by "flinging" or "throwing" your body parts around.

You may feel light resistance in your muscles, but you should never feel pain during a stretch.

Start with slow, low intensity movements, and gradually progress to full-speed, game-like movements.