I thought this a very interesting article on warming up before racing...

Seems that you shouldn't do long duration stretches.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/sports/playmagazine/112pewarm.html?em

Great article! Thanks for the link!

Something that may be interesting to some are works by Thomas Kurz (Stretching Scientifically and Science of Sports Training). Both of those really delineate quite a bit of information on dynamic and static stretching and when to use them.

Thanks, Rob. It's a very confusing article to me. For instance, this paragraph:

"Controversy remains about the extent to which dynamic warm-ups prevent injury. But studies have been increasingly clear that static stretching alone before exercise does little or nothing to help. The largest study has been done on military recruits; results showed that an almost equal number of subjects developed lower-limb injuries (shin splints, stress fractures, etc.), regardless of whether they had performed static stretches before training sessions."

I'm confused as to how shin splints, which is a sort of bone bruise by one definition, has anything to do with muscle stretching? I wonder if that original article said anything about muscle tears/strains, ligament injuries, which seems to be the relevant question?

And this:

"A major study published earlier this year by the Centers for Disease Control, on the other hand, found that knee injuries were cut nearly in half among female collegiate soccer players who followed a warm-up program that included both dynamic warm-up exercises and static stretching."

Let me try to understand this. The Ladies did BOTH static and dynamic stretching, had fewer injuries, yet give the credit to the dynamic stretching only?

Bottom line so far, to me anyways, is that stretching may lower short term muscle power and that simply an aerobic warm up might be beneficial.

Read this article: The Warm-up

It is essentially a quip from the Thomas Kurz guy I mention above. He delineates more specifically why/when you would do dynamic stretching versus static stretching and what/how you should conduct a warm-up.

Overall, a nice article. But, I found some funny tidbits:

"For overly excited athletes, warm-up should include slow exercises that require precision, of high complexity but well known. For the apathetic athlete, warm-up should include simple and easy exercises that require fast reaction, fast-paced movements, and agility, and that are conducted in a very energetic manner (Czajkowski 1994)."
Apathetic? Who is apathetic?

"jumping jacks can neurologically disorganize a person (Diamond 1979). Jumping jacks, even for normal persons, can cause regression to an out-of-sync, homolateral pattern of locomotion (left arm swings forward with the left leg, right arm with right leg) and “a vague feeling of confusion” (Diamond 1979)."
No wonder why Oscar leaves me for dead.

"Isometric tensions will only make the athlete tired and decrease coordination. Passive, relaxed stretches, on the other hand, have a calming effect and can even make an athlete sleepy."
So those Yoga mats are really sleeping mats . . . now I get it.
Cheers,
Jumping Jack