Kick, stretch and kick!

When to stretch? Before? During? After?

One of my clients said it best, “stretching is the flossing of the exercise world.” We know we probably should, but rarely take the time. How important is stretching and when is the best time to stretch?

A warm-up for beach volleyball should prepare us for training or competition. This preparation time ideally improves our performance and reduces our risk of injury. Stretching used to be considered a vital part of this warm-up. However, there is little to no evidence that stretching before training or competition prevents injury or muscle soreness. In fact, recent research suggests that stretching can actually hinder our performance by impeding force, power, speed and reaction time. I don’t know about you but I don’t need anything else to slow me down or reduce my ability to jump.

While the ideal warm-up does not include stretching, don’t throw out the floss quite yet. Stretching does play a role in our conditioning program, because inflexibility and imbalances in flexibility can increase our risk for injury. So when is the best time to stretch? For optimal benefits we should stretch 5-10 minutes post-training and competition. At this point our muscles are warm and more able to stretch. We may also want to include a separate session for stretching each week if we’re inflexible. The day after a competition is a great time for this. For some examples on stretches to include visit: http://volleyballpr.tripod.com/id2.html

In summary, here a three things to keep in mind about stretching:

- Ideally, stretching should not be included in our pre-training or competition warm-up
- The best time to stretch is 5-10 minutes after training or competition
- Inflexibility and imbalances in flexibility can increase our risk for injury

Until next time…See you on the beach Stretch!

Eric Hand, MA , CMT
Exercise Physiologist
Fast Twitch Fitness

“We’re all athletes. Some of us are just farther along in our training.”