Stretch to Lose

Every now and again, I let our athletes pick their own warm-up prior to a training session.

And every now and again, a little piece of me dies.

Why?

Without fail, one of them decides to perform some type of a static stretch.

Kids Making Themselves Worse

You would think that the athlete would know better.

You would think they would be tired of hearing me preach about the negative effects of static stretching prior to activity.

Me Preaching About the Evils of the Static Stretch

Nope.


COACHES ARE WORSE

What makes the situation much worse, is that COACHES are even bigger culprits of this static stretching epidemic. (That's right, I am calling it an epidemic).

As a high school football coach, I always look over to the other side of the field to see how the other team is warming-up during pre-game.

99% of the time I see this.

Why would a coach still make his players do this, even if it puts his team at a disadvantage?

I honestly cannot think of a legitimate reason - especially with all of the sound information on this topic that is readily available.

Regardless, this is still some of the garbage I hear:

"I want more time to talk to my players before a game"

"Stretch time is my only time to collect my thoughts on the field"

"The parents expect us to static stretch. What if a kid gets hurt?"

"This is the way football teams have always done it."

Old-Timers Making Themselves Worse

Unfortunately, not one of these excuses will help your athletes better prepare for competition.
The only thing it will do is make them worse.

Why Did I Static Stretch Before the Game?

But Coach, didn't you write about this already in Your Coach Is Ruining Your Career?

Yes I did.

So why are you writing about it again?

1. Because people still don't get it.

2. Because I got fired up by an article I read this morning in the National Strength and Conditioning Journal that talked about this exact same topic.

To me, the best part of the article was where they made it very simple:

"The current recommendations for stretching practices indicate that STATIC STRETCHING BEFORE VIGOROUS ACTIVITY IS DETRIMENTAL and SHOULD BE REPLACED WITH A DYNAMIC STRETCH ROUNTINE."

- Bruce Craig, "Preactivity Stretching Research and Current Coaching Practices: Why the Disconnect?", National Strength and Conditioning Journal, Volume 34, Number 5, October 2012

Stay Tuned:

I am not stating that static stretching is always a bad thing.
I am simply stating that it should not be done prior to activity.

So when should it be done?

That will be covered in my next article.

Related Articles:

Your Coach Is Ruining Your Career

The 4 Minute Warm-Up

The 2.5 Minute Warm-Up