Since the 80s various literature has become available regarding flexibility. It tackles the old school of through which suggests that static flexibility can be used in both a warm up and a cool down section of a workout. Dynamic flexibility is favoured as it allows blood to continue to flow through your veins after a light warmup activity. Dynamic flexibility exercises includes leg raises, leg cradles and long lunges. But is there any place for static stretching during a warm up? if so what specific circumstance would need to be in place before we utilise statics stretching.
Case 1: Hip Movement in Running
Imagine a middle aged gentleman begin marathon training for his first intense endurance race. The issue commonly associated with middle aged gym goers I'm the UK would be an anterior pelvic tilt. These people pretty much run like a duck! The 3 factors that a use this poor alignment are weak lower abdominal muscles, weak gluteus muscles and low hip flexor flexibility.
If we were to tackle the low hip flexor flexibility we can try dynamic stretches to begin with. We can use many repetitions but if we perform more than 60 dynamic stretches it will become more of a muscular endurance drill. This can be ineffective. If we simply belt a static hip flexor stretch for 30 seconds we will find that the area won't be over active during a run.
Case 2: Kicking in Martial Arts
If a martial artist wished to kick high dynamic flexibility would be the way to go. You specifically stretch the muscle that needs to allow the grater range of motion whilst warming up the opposite muscle. I would purely stick to dynamic stretching unless the circumstance is a complicated one which requires a physiotherapists input.
I was recently at a Tae Kwon-Do class where we were made to practice a partner stretch for the adductors. When I got up my legs felt too relaxed. They lost much of their elastic property. Kicking out was fine but when it came to retracting the kick the movement was slow and weak.
To conclude this post there are highly specific situations where static stretching can be used. The use of static stretching is to improve the quality of movement patters such as squats, hinges, gait etc. a dynamic stretch is always the first go to method and is enough to prevent injury.
You may also be interested in:
Hamstring Development for Sprinting:
http://icankeepup.blogspot.co.uk/2015/09/hamstring-development-for-sprinting.html
Thoracic Spine Mobility and Exercise Selection
http://icankeepup.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/thoracic-spine-mobility-and-exercise.html
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