S B Coaches College - Tip of the Month February 2009




		S B Coaches College Tip of the Month February 2009 Share \|

Flexibility training has become an overlooked part of many training programs. The studies demonstrating that performing static stretching prior to explosive and dynamic tasks has proved to reduce power by dampening the stretch-shortening cycle. But those studies were done by preceding the explosive task (vertical jump) with a static stretch immediately before.

It is important to realize the context in which the study was done. No coach in their right mind should have their athletes perform static stretches right before doing something explosive. Perform your static stretching prior to your dynamic flexibility work, which should come before your explosive work.

When I talk about flexibility, I'm talking more about the length of the muscle and what most people think about when talking about static stretching. The capacity to perform movement over a broad range is significant in training. Flexibility is necessary to perform skills with a high amplitude and increases the ease with which athletes' can perform fast movements. The success of performing athletic movements depends on the joint amplitude or range of motion, which has to be higher than that required by the actual movement.

When flexibility training is done properly, and effectively you can develop a flexibility reserve, which is essentially possessing more flexibility than is actually needed to perform normal movements. This reserve comes into play in awkward situations that may occur in sport (reaching, lunging for a ball) and allows the athlete to execute movement without excessive tension due to decreased resistance of the lengthened muscles. Possessing a flexibility reserve also allows for smoother movement and better joint mobility. Adequate flexibility is needed for good mobility. Just like possessing greater levels of strength will make other movements easier and allow athletes' to produce more force, having a flexibility reserve will allow the athletes' muscles to move much more freely and can increase your ability to move efficiently.

Simply put, sport is movement, and the quality of movement is either enhanced by flexibility or constrained by the lack of it.

I like to perform static active stretches that get my athletes on their feet, as this develops a number of things:
1. Teaches proper athletic position and develops body awareness
2. Involves the CNS much more than passive versions - which helps to regulate tension and thus the relative length of the muscles by influencing the contractile element - reciprocal inhibition
3. Works on stability at the same time - which helps to develop the motor pattern
4. Develops strength in the weakest position, which allows for greater strength through the full range of motion
5. Muscle Activation of dormant muscles

These static active stretches are done prior to a dynamic warm-up and before joint mobilizations and also constitute much of our post-season period when my goal is to really develop a flexibility reserve and teach position. This is the order that the warm-up is performed:

1. Static Stretches
2. Joint Mobilizations
3. Dynamic Warm-up
4. Core Training
5. Plyometric/Speed Training

Use your imagination with how to incorporate this type of flexibility work or check back next month with some variations that I use.

References:

Varying amounts of acute static stretching and its effect on vertical jump performance.
Robbins JW, Scheuermann BW. J Strength Cond Res. 2008 May;22(3):781-6.