Warming up with dynamic stretching before exercise is important to prevent injury.
With the Travis Manion Foundation 9/11 Heroes run this weekend, consider these suggestions to help keep you healthy on the course.
Before any type of stretching is performed, it is important to warm up the muscles. This can be accomplished through light exercise (enough to get your heart rate up and make you feel a little sweaty) and should be performed for approximately 5 minutes. This can be in the form of any aerobic exercise, including light jogging, jumping jacks, high knees, or running in place. After this brief warm-up, you are ready to stretch.
Stretching is important to help warm up your muscles, but recent research suggests that static stretching, which is stretching performed while holding a muscle in a lengthened position for a prolonged period of time, has not been shown to prevent injury, and in some cases can even acutely inhibit muscle performance(1). Conversely, dynamic stretching, which lengthens muscles while they are moved through ranges of motion, has been shown to improve muscle elasticity without impacting acute muscle function (2). Therefore, prior to a race, dynamic stretching is favorable to static stretching so as not to decrease performance.
A sample dynamic warm-up may include:
Walking lunge:
Inchworms:
High knees:
Butt kicks:
Hip gate openers:
Karaoke:
Tin man:
or any other exercise that actively moves muscles through a large range of motion, increasing blood flow and improving elasticity. The dynamic stretching portion should last 5-8 minutes and should be completed within 10 minutes prior to the start of the exercise for maximal effect.
As tempting as it may be to skip a warm up, it is important to prevent injury and may even improve performance.
See you on the course!
Kelsey Hanlon, PT, DPT
WWS Physical Therapy and Vestibular Rehabilitation
- Behm D.G., Chaouachi A. (2011) A review of the acute effects of static and dynamic stretching on performance. European Journal of Applied Physiology 111, 2633-2651.
- Opplert. O., Babault, N. (2019). Acute Effects of Dynamic Stretching on Mechanical Properties Result from both Muscle-Tendon Stretching and Muscle Warm-Up. Journal of Sports Science and Medicine 18. 351-358.
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