Why Invest Your Time Warming-Up And Doing Stretching And Mobility Exercises? - Part 1A
Whatever sport you do, sport is an activity which requires a holistic approach - not only the activity in its own right be it running, swimming, cycling, playing badminton, tennis squash, soccer, rugby, American football, baseball etc..... but also many ancillary components of varying levels of importance are necessary so that rather than destroying it, you look after your body and build it up. Stretching is one of those ancillary activities.
Contents
Due to the large amount of material and the time needed to write and construct the diagrams this topic is divided into two articles:
So in this first article six sections follow in Part 1 (published in December 2002):
a. Why Stretch and Strengthen?
b. Composition of a muscle/Risk of injury
c. Do Stretching Exercises Really Prevent Injury?
d. Warming up and Warming Down
e. What happens to your body when you stretch
f. Seven basic stretching exercises for runners
g. Do I have time to develop a stretching and strengthening program?
After revision of the reasons for stretching exercises, Part Two is to be published in January 2003 and will cover the practice of stretching with a table of sport specific exercises:
h. Table of Sport Specific Stretching and Mobility Exercises
i. Stretching and Mobility Exercises
j. Yoga, Ti Chi and so on
k. Any other points
WHY STRETCH AND STRENGTHEN?
Focus Question: How are muscle pairs connected to the risk of injury through your training?
Physiological adaptation through training: As you continue to participate in sports and train for them, greater demands are placed on certain muscle groups than on others. The body adapts by making these muscle groups more powerful. Therefore your performance improves through training.
Antagonistic muscle pairs: However, since a muscle group is usually a member of a pair e.g. biceps and triceps in the arm, and these muscles act in opposite directions, they are called antagonistic muscles e.g. the biceps muscle flexes the elbow, the triceps extends the elbow. So you must maintain a certain balance between the muscles o that the units continue to function efficiently. An exercise program for a specific sport may greatly overemphasise one of the muscles in a pair and so an injury usually results. Note that injury can occur not only because one muscle becomes stronger but also because it becomes tighter.
Risk of Injury: Injury can occur in the stronger or the weaker muscle. For example, in the runner the calf muscle becomes very strong but the anterior tibial group of
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