Pre practice stretching

[jet]

I've heard many coaches say that they don't stretch before practice because they think it's a waste of time. How many of you coaches don't stretch before practice and have you dealt with any muscle pulls?

[coachjd]

I think the statement of "many coaches say they don't stretch" is a misconception. Most coaches do stretching before practice, just not the traditional static stretching. They are doing what is called a Dynamic Warmup. A few examples of what we do in our dynamic warm-up are walking lunges, russian walks, high knee run, power skips, etc.... The concept is to get the blood flowing and heat up the muscles and conective tissues and to take the muscle through a lot of different movements in a short period of time. We do our static stretching at the end of practice.

[williamcrehan]

AMEN!!!!!!!

Ours is part of practice at beginning. 4 1/2 minutes and we are done. Thinking this year I may add in an addtional 3 minutes during individuals, to focus on certain dynamics by position.

[tog]

coachjd said:

I think the statement of "many coaches say they don't stretch" is a misconception. Most coaches do stretching before practice, just not the traditional static stretching. They are doing what is called a Dynamic Warmup. A few examples of what we do in our dynamic warm-up are walking lunges, russian walks, high knee run, power skips, etc.... The concept is to get the blood flowing and heat up the muscles and conective tissues and to take the muscle through a lot of different movements in a short period of time. We do our static stretching at the end of practice.

ditto

we have had few if any pulls since starting this about 8 years ago

[wpialoline]

We do dynamic stretching at the beginning and it only takes about 6 min. Traditional stretching actually tells the muscles that it is time to shut down. Dynamic stretching provides blood to the muscles and keeps its elasticity. We do traditional stretching at the end of practice and also right after the game.

Have you ever seen a dog stretch before it chased a car? No and they don't pull muscles. Same with kids at recess, they don't stretch and you don't see them pull muscles.

This is one area that football is behind the ball on. Olympians have been doing this style of stretching for decades.

[gamedog]

coachjd said:

I think the statement of "many coaches say they don't stretch" is a misconception. Most coaches do stretching before practice, just not the traditional static stretching. They are doing what is called a Dynamic Warmup. A few examples of what we do in our dynamic warm-up are walking lunges, russian walks, high knee run, power skips, etc.... The concept is to get the blood flowing and heat up the muscles and conective tissues and to take the muscle through a lot of different movements in a short period of time. We do our static stretching at the end of practice.

That's us too. Takes 5 minutes at the most and can't remember a pull in 7 years.

[rooster]

We do dynamic stretching (like coachjd mentioned) and static at the end. The one thing I have found is that if you don't change the routine up once in a while, kids will get bored and find a way to cut corners. I'm considering doing the dynamic warmups in our position groups with each coach responsible for his own kids. Anyone already doing this instead of team stretches?

[blb]

We do it that way occasionally to break routine, and also once a week during two-a-days send kids to a different coach (ex. OL to backfield coach, receivers to line coach, etc.) for warmup so they get to interact with different kids/coach a little bit.

[zexx14]

Can anyone post their entire dynamic stretching routine? I seem to remember seeing that posted before. If so, could someone direct me to that thread.

Zexx14

[coachmacplains]

Call me old fashioned, but we still do a static routine, with a few dynamic drills also. It takes us 12-14 minutes - more than most I'm sure - but we're convinced it has helped with injury prevention. I know there is some debate on the effectiveness of one vs. the other, but I sort of go by the "if it ain't broke..." philosophy.

[tog]

coachmac, there are more than one ways to skin a cat man


here is our dynamic warmup

High Knee
High Knee Crossover
Butt Kicks
Lunges
Sumo
Slow and low Carrioca
Shuffle
Shuffle
Backpedal reach
Fire out

[rooster]

tog- that's almost identical to ours - what's the sumo?

[tog]

just a wide step out, and squat down, do that for 5 yards, the flop around the other way

[JMC]

We do everything you do except the sumo and also ad in bounds for height and bounds for distance. Read that having the muscle do explosions readies them. Also read that jumping jacks is a great dynamic warm-up get the arms and legs ready, but I do agree dynamic get the muscles warmed and ready for action.

[blb]

I still see a lot of benefit in flexibility exercises for HS athletes who are still growing and developing physically, and also by coming together as a team for a warmup period before activity. Having said that, we don't do them before every practice.

It appears to this old timer that what people are now calling "Dynamic Stretching" or "Ballistic Exercises" is what used to be called Form Running and Agility back in the day (when the dinosaurs roamed the Earth).

[tog]

you know, blb, it is

it is basically what our track team does before they do all their track stuff, turning left and all

in track-we call if form running (we add other things to it, where we actually work running form, but all of these are built into it)

during athletics we call it- dyanamic warmup

i wonder who came up with the neato sounding name ?

[coachmacplains]

tog said:

coachmac, there are more than one ways to skin a cat man


here is our dynamic warmup

High Knee
High Knee Crossover
Butt Kicks
Lunges
Sumo
Slow and low Carrioca
Shuffle
Shuffle
Backpedal reach
Fire out

Of these we use shuffle, high knees, and butt kicks in conjuction with our warm up regimen and carioca at the end (not every day). Nonetheless, static stretching is a central part of what we do. I also coach track and using the same basic routine, with some tweaking. We have had 1 hammie and no quad pulls in 18 years. It seems to me that lengthening a muscle that is properly warmed up has merit for muscle and joint flexibility.

I attended a good clinic last summer devoted to a dynamic regimen, and we have adapted a few ideas from that, though it is somewhat time consuming if you use it all. It was developed by the Santa Monica Orthopaedic and Sports Medicine Research Foundation and is called the PEP program. The link is here: www.aclprevent.com/pepprogram.htm

[blb]

tog, I think the person who came up with the "neato sounding name" was someone trying to market (read: make $$) something by repackaging old stuff with a new title.

[aztec]

Here is an example

Cones 0, 15yards, 30 yards

1/2 run at 15 cone 3/4 run
same thing back
A skips down
Forward backward lunge walk, at 15 cone we go backwards
shuffle at 15 cone flip other direction
High Knee Carioca at 15 cone flip
Heel run to 15 cone then toe run
Power skips
Done

takes less than 5 mins

Then we use running ladders for footwork drills

[silkyice]

All we do to warm up is high knees for 10 yards twice, butt kicks for 10 yards twice, and caricoca for 10 yards twice and that is it. Takes about one minute. We usually go into a specialty period after that, but sometimes go right into a full live period. We haven't had any muscle pulls since we went to this. Watch your athletes play pick up basketball or touch football. They just jump right in and play and don't get hurt. This convinced me to get rid of our 10 minutes of stretching. By the way, we used to have muscle pulls with stretching. Heck, I've seen kids strain muscles by over stretching.