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Celtic Storm players recover from ACL surgeries (Deseret News article)

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Methods for Increasing Speed

ACL Injuries (ACL prevention article posted on Utah Youth Soccer)

Two of Celtic Storm's best players and highly recruited college soccer prospects (Jamie Hatfield and Jessica Harmon)
recently tore their ACL's. Here's an article outlining the issues relating to female athletes and knee injuries.

We will add links of training/strength and conditioning tips which aim to help prevent these injuries. If you want to submit
info on this topic please email it to us.

Static vs. Dynamic Flexibility

By Taylor Tollison B.S. Exercise and Sport Science, CSCS for the Institute of Sports Performance

The two main goals of a sports performance program are to prevent injury and increase performance.
As coaches and trainers we will perform anything from plyometrics to sprinting to reduce injury
and increase performance. The real question is whether the type of stretching we chose to perform
before activity will have an affect on the performance and injury levels of our athletes.

STATIC STRETCHING

Many coaches advocate the use of static stretching prior to exercise. Static stretching involves
reaching forward to a point of tension and holding the stretch. Static stretching has been used
through out the years for two main reasons: injury prevention and performance enhancement. (1)
Does static stretching prior to activity achieve the goals of injury prevention and performance
enhancement? Research has shown that static stretching can be detrimental to performance and doesn't
necessarily lead to decreases in injury. Below are a few studies done on the topic of static
stretching:

1. Rod Pope an army physiotherapist in Australia, recently carried out a wide study to assess the
relationship between static stretching and injury prevention. Pope monitored over 1600 recruits
over the course of a year in randomised controlled trials. He found no differences in the occurrence
of injury between those recruits who statically stretched and those who did not. (1, 2)

2. "Gleim & McHugh (1997), would also challenge the premise that stretching, or indeed increased
flexibility, reduces the risk of injury" (1,3)

3. New research has shown that static stretching decreases eccentric strength for up to an hour
after the stretch. Static stretching has been shown to decrease muscle stretch by up to 9% for 60
minutes following the stretch and decrease eccentric strength by 7% followed by a specific
hamstring stretch. (4)

4. Rosenbaum and Hennig showed that static stretching reduced peak force by 5% and the rate of
force production by 8%. This study was about achilles tendon reflex activity. (5)

5. Gerard van der poel stated that static stretching caused a specific decrease in the specific
coordination of explosive movements. (4)

6. Three 15-second stretches of the hamstrings, quadriceps, and calf muscles reduced the peak
vertical velocity of a vertical jump in the majority of subjects (Knudson et al. 2000). (6,7)

7. Moscov (1993) found that there is no relationship between static flexibility and dynamic
flexibility. This suggests that an increased static range of motion may not be translated into
functional, sport-specific flexibility, which is largely dynamic in most sporting situations (1)

8. Static based stretching programs seem best suited following an activity. (8)

In soccer it is vitally important to have explosive muscles that allow a player to jump higher for
the winning header or to explode past an opponent to get to the ball quicker. Almost every
movement in soccer is preceded by an eccentric movement. For example, when you run you bend your legs
first then explode forward, in jumping you must bend your legs, and finally cutting in soccer
requires a lot of eccentric power. Wouldn't it make sense to have optimal power, coordination and
eccentric strength to succeed in soccer? If we shouldn't static stretch then how can we stretch to
optimize performance on the field? The answer is dynamic stretching.

DYNAMIC STRETCHING

Many of the best strength coaches support the use of dynamic stretching. Dynamic stretching
consists of functional based exercises which use sport specific movements to prepare the body for
movement. (8) "Dynamic stretching, according to Kurz, "involves moving parts of your body and
gradually increasing reach, speed of movement, or both." Do not confuse dynamic stretching with ballistic
stretching! Dynamic stretching consists of controlled leg and arm swings that take you (gently!)
to the limits of your range of motion. Ballistic stretches involve trying to force a part of the
body beyond its range of motion. In dynamic stretches, there are no bounces or "jerky" movements.
(9) Several professional coaches, authors and studies have supported or shown the effectiveness of
dynamic stretching. Below are a few examples of support for dynamic stretching:

1. Mike Boyle uses a dynamic warm-up with his athletes. He goes through about 26000 workouts over
the course of a summer. In 2002 he did not have one major muscle pull that required medical
attention. (10)

2. Flexibility is speed specific. There are two kinds of stretch receptors, one measures
magnitude and speed and the other measures magnitude only. Static flexibility improves static flexibility
and dynamic flexibility improves dynamic flexibility which is why it doesn't make sense to static
stretch prior to dynamic activity. There is considerable but not complete transfer of static
stretching to dynamic stretching(11)

3. One author compared a team that dynamically stretched to a team that static stretched. The
team that dynamically stretched had fewer injuries. (8)

4. There are few sports where achieving static flexibility is advantageous to success in the
sport. Therefore according to the principle of specificity it would seem to be more advantageous to
perform a dynamic warm-up which more resembles the activity of the sport.(12)

5. Dynamic Flexibility increases core temperature, muscle temperature, elongates the muscles,
stimulates the nervous system, and helps decrease the chance of injury. (13)

6. Another author showed that dynamic stretching does increase flexibility. (11)

As coaches, trainers and parents we all want our athletes to lower their incidence of injury and
increase our performance. Dynamic flexibility has been used successfully by trainers and coaches
to increase flexibility and possibly lower the incidence of injury. It is the job of the coach or
trainer to pick the method they feel is best suited for the sport and athletes. The above
evidence supports the fact that static stretching prior to activity is not the best solution. Static
stretching doesn't necessarily lead to a decrease in injury and may decrease performance. If one
purpose of the warm-up is to warm-up the body, wouldn't static stretching actually cool the body
down? If static stretching is not the solution to a pre-game warm-up what is? Dynamic stretching.

Your sports performance program should look like this:

Beginning- Dynamic warm up

Middle- Actual workout

End- Cool down/static stretching

If you have any questions about this article please go to the website and email me.

1. www.pponline.co.uk <http://www.pponline.co.uk/> , So what about dynamic flexibility.

2. Rod Pope, 'Skip the warm-up,' New Scientist, 164(2214), p. 23

3. Gleim & McHugh (1997), 'Flexibility and its effects on sports injury and performance,'
Sports Medicine, 24(5), pp. 289-299.

4. Mick Critchell, Warm ups for soccer a Dynamic approach, page 5.

5. Rosenbaum, D. and E. M. Hennig. 1995. The influence of stretching and warm-up exercises
on Achilles tendon reflex activity. Journal of Sport Sciences vol. 13, no. 6, pp. 481-90.

6. Knudson, D., K. Bennet, R. Corn, D. Leick, and C. Smith. 2000. Acute Effects of
Stretching Are Not Evident in the Kinematics of the Vertical Jump. Research Quarterly for Exercise and
Sport vol. 71, no. 1 (Supplement), p. A-30.

7. Tomas Kurz, www.scienceofsports.com <http://www.scienceofsports.com/> ,

8. Mann, Douglas, Jones Margaret 1999: Guidelines to the implementation of a dynamic
stretching routine, Strength and Conditioning Journal:Vol 21 No 6 pp53-55

9. www.cmcrossroads.com <http://www.cmcrossroads.com/>

10. Boyle, Mike, Functional Training for Sports, pg 29

11. Kurz, Tomas, Science of Sports Training, page 236

12. Hendrick, Allen, Dynamic Flexibility training, Strength and conditioning Journal, Vol 22
no 5, Pgs 33-38.

13. Frederick Gregory 2001 Baseball Part 1 Dynamic Flexibility, Strength and conditioning
Journal Vol 23 No 1 Pages 21-30.