- Oct 12, 2009
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No.
New research shows no benefit to static stretching, before or after exercise.
Static stretching, at any time, can even increase injury risk.
The NY Times has multiple articles on this.
incorporate sprints at beginning or end of practice?
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No.
New research shows no benefit to static stretching, before or after exercise.
Static stretching, at any time, can even increase injury risk.
The NY Times has multiple articles on this.
- Oct 12, 2009
- 1,460
- 0
We're not talking about games.
Cannonball
Ex "Expert"
- Feb 25, 2009
- 4,898
- 113
I coached basketball a number of years. In fact, last year was the first time in my 25 years of teaching that I didn't coach basketball. When to run springs? NEVER! Run with the ball! We started out each practice with our "Dirty 30" Which meant that we were going to run for 30 minutes DOING BASKETBALL ACTIVITIES. Naturally, this gassed them but everything involved a basketball skill and my teams always got better. There are so many dribbling drills on the run, so many full court layup drills, so many weaves that players can run that no coach should waste a minute running the team. BTW. we set the clock at 30 minutes and let it run. We transition between whichever drills we needed for the team to improve and started practice. Players knew that they were never going to have to run after practice and so, our practices were intense and players didn't save anything for later.
Edited to add:
"We started" means after we ran four laps and did dynamic stretches. I'm not a fan of static stretches.
Edited to add:
"We started" means after we ran four laps and did dynamic stretches. I'm not a fan of static stretches.
FastpitchFan
Softball fan
Here is the OFFICIAL answer - straight from high-performance coaching or applied physiology textbooks.
Answer: It depends of your goal! (And this answer is true across the board, meaning any sports...)
Let's first define what you do the sprints for. If you only do a couple of sprints to complete the warm-up, then the goal is ONLY to prepare them for the activity that follows. That's different. It is considered a warm-up activity and is only meant to get the body ready and NOT to increase speed.
My answer is based on... you do sprints to either to increase speed or do conditioning. In other words, the sprints are done with the purpose of improving the physiology of the body somehow, not in a warm-up goal.
Option A - Doing sprints at the beginning.
If your goal is to INCREASE SPEED, then you MUST do them right after the warm-up at the beginning of practice before you do any kind of technical work.
The reason: Speed can only be increased by stimulating a FRESH nervous system. When you do speed work with the goal of increasing speed, you are training the nervous system (brain-muscle connection) to work faster, more efficiently and to recruit more muscle fibers. This ABSOLUTELY requires a fresh nervous system. If you do speed work at the end, you will NOT gain any speed out of it. The disadvantage, your body will be a little more tired and practice may be a little less productive (usually not much but it depends of how much sprinting you have done).
OPTION B - Doing sprints at the end of practice
At that point, your nervous system is tired. You cannot gain speed by doing sprint work at that point. However, if your goal is conditioning or training the body to keep working hard under fatigue just like it happens so many times in tournaments, after a lot of games, when it's hot outside, when you've traveled, etc... then it would be a GOOD reason. Basketball coaches make their player run late in practice to condition them to keep working hard when it matters - when you are tired and the game is on the line. You are teaching the body to be able to push through fatigue, to keep working when it would be easy to give up. Somehow, it is a bit of mental toughness training through physical toughness or physical resilience training.
So if your goal is to train your athletes to perform better when they are fatigued or tired, doing sprints at the end of practices is perfect. However, you are NOT doing speed work, you are doing conditioning.
So, you must decide... Are you running sprints to...
a) warm-up?
b) increase speed?
c) improve overall conditioning?
Your answer will dictate when you do it
Applied Physiology Lesson 201.
Coach Marc
Answer: It depends of your goal! (And this answer is true across the board, meaning any sports...)
Let's first define what you do the sprints for. If you only do a couple of sprints to complete the warm-up, then the goal is ONLY to prepare them for the activity that follows. That's different. It is considered a warm-up activity and is only meant to get the body ready and NOT to increase speed.
My answer is based on... you do sprints to either to increase speed or do conditioning. In other words, the sprints are done with the purpose of improving the physiology of the body somehow, not in a warm-up goal.
Option A - Doing sprints at the beginning.
If your goal is to INCREASE SPEED, then you MUST do them right after the warm-up at the beginning of practice before you do any kind of technical work.
The reason: Speed can only be increased by stimulating a FRESH nervous system. When you do speed work with the goal of increasing speed, you are training the nervous system (brain-muscle connection) to work faster, more efficiently and to recruit more muscle fibers. This ABSOLUTELY requires a fresh nervous system. If you do speed work at the end, you will NOT gain any speed out of it. The disadvantage, your body will be a little more tired and practice may be a little less productive (usually not much but it depends of how much sprinting you have done).
OPTION B - Doing sprints at the end of practice
At that point, your nervous system is tired. You cannot gain speed by doing sprint work at that point. However, if your goal is conditioning or training the body to keep working hard under fatigue just like it happens so many times in tournaments, after a lot of games, when it's hot outside, when you've traveled, etc... then it would be a GOOD reason. Basketball coaches make their player run late in practice to condition them to keep working hard when it matters - when you are tired and the game is on the line. You are teaching the body to be able to push through fatigue, to keep working when it would be easy to give up. Somehow, it is a bit of mental toughness training through physical toughness or physical resilience training.
So if your goal is to train your athletes to perform better when they are fatigued or tired, doing sprints at the end of practices is perfect. However, you are NOT doing speed work, you are doing conditioning.
So, you must decide... Are you running sprints to...
a) warm-up?
b) increase speed?
c) improve overall conditioning?
Your answer will dictate when you do it
Applied Physiology Lesson 201.
Coach Marc
FastpitchFan
Softball fan
STATIC STRETCHING Issue.
Static stretching for warm-up purposes - it does NOT decrease injury.
Static stretching for cool-down purposes to reduce soreness - It does NOT reduce soreness.
Static stretching done at the end of practice, workouts, or games to help recovery or INCREASE flexibility - it is appropriate. Static stretching is one of 3 ways to improve flexibility. However, it must be done consistently and the stretch held for more than than 10-15 seconds. Flexibility is a physical quality that needs to be trained and static stretching has been shown to be effectively to increase it. It helps increase performance too!
But static stretching before sessions to prevent injuries - waste of time. Studies are clear on that. However, it remains a good method to increase flexibility but it should be done at the end of workouts and sessions with that goal in mind.
Coach Marc
Static stretching for warm-up purposes - it does NOT decrease injury.
Static stretching for cool-down purposes to reduce soreness - It does NOT reduce soreness.
Static stretching done at the end of practice, workouts, or games to help recovery or INCREASE flexibility - it is appropriate. Static stretching is one of 3 ways to improve flexibility. However, it must be done consistently and the stretch held for more than than 10-15 seconds. Flexibility is a physical quality that needs to be trained and static stretching has been shown to be effectively to increase it. It helps increase performance too!
But static stretching before sessions to prevent injuries - waste of time. Studies are clear on that. However, it remains a good method to increase flexibility but it should be done at the end of workouts and sessions with that goal in mind.
Coach Marc
I just attended a clinic in New Jersey that featured coaches like Ken Erickson of USF and Karen Weekly of Tennessee. Lisa Fernandez gave a two hour presentation and mentioned all of the conditioning / training she did. She would sometimes run a mile before practice so that she would be a little tired and have to concentrate more on the mechanics of her pitching. It also allowed her to simulate game time environments when she may be a little more tired. So, long distance running (laps) before practice could be considered beneficial.
- Oct 19, 2009
- 1,821
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My daughter’s basketball team has had a number of injuries, 3 kneels two out for the year with surgery, one kid who is trying to make it to the end of the season, but has not been able to make it much over a quarter of play the past few games. One kid suffered a spine injury and is just now coming back to play after a 3 week layoff. I have to wonder is something wrong or is it just bad luck?
The big thing one young lady a good basketball player and had a number of colleges looking at her. She always gave a 150% on the court and was IMO is one of the best centerfielders I saw in high school softball. She was superfast, a slapper who hit with power had 4 HR’s last season and the highest batting average on the team, great fielder and a terrific arm and a great modest kid to boot.
She suffered a concussion and not the first from what I’ve heard, I know she had another concussion 4 weeks ago in a game. According to my daughter from what she was told by the BB coach, they did a test on her brain she needed to score 0 to 5 and scored a 30 very bad according to my daughter. The doctors had told her parents that she suffered irreversible damage and will have trouble learning along with possible other complications; the doctor pulled her from all sports for good.
Lets refer to her as AJ and please remember this fine young lady in your prayers
The big thing one young lady a good basketball player and had a number of colleges looking at her. She always gave a 150% on the court and was IMO is one of the best centerfielders I saw in high school softball. She was superfast, a slapper who hit with power had 4 HR’s last season and the highest batting average on the team, great fielder and a terrific arm and a great modest kid to boot.
She suffered a concussion and not the first from what I’ve heard, I know she had another concussion 4 weeks ago in a game. According to my daughter from what she was told by the BB coach, they did a test on her brain she needed to score 0 to 5 and scored a 30 very bad according to my daughter. The doctors had told her parents that she suffered irreversible damage and will have trouble learning along with possible other complications; the doctor pulled her from all sports for good.
Lets refer to her as AJ and please remember this fine young lady in your prayers
I have to ask, when will your daughter EVER be pitching with her heart beating a mile a minute? If her nerves are getting the better of her, causing her heart to go that fast, then she needs to be taught breathing exercises.
Teaching her to pitch when tired though is one of the best things you can do for her.
Honestly, I do both - not in the same day of course!
Sometimes I DO want to sprint them at the beginning of practice for 2 main reasons...
1) they are not already tired and are more likely to actually hit closer to real top speed. You don't typically get faster by training always at 90%
2) I DO want them to learn to play even when a little tired. If I expect them to perform on long tourney days or if our schedule is full of double headers, they need to know how to focus and how to perform even when they're not "fresh"
But for the most part - I do tend to save sprinting for the latter part of practice. At that point the challenge is to GET safe even when you are tired...to beat out the throw at first or to make it home to score in the bottom of the last inning of the last game on a long tourney weekend.
In otter words, you don't get to dog it just because it's the en of practice an I know you're already tired. Show me how deep you're gonna dig when the game is in the line in extra innings of a multiple game day!
Sometimes I DO want to sprint them at the beginning of practice for 2 main reasons...
1) they are not already tired and are more likely to actually hit closer to real top speed. You don't typically get faster by training always at 90%
2) I DO want them to learn to play even when a little tired. If I expect them to perform on long tourney days or if our schedule is full of double headers, they need to know how to focus and how to perform even when they're not "fresh"
But for the most part - I do tend to save sprinting for the latter part of practice. At that point the challenge is to GET safe even when you are tired...to beat out the throw at first or to make it home to score in the bottom of the last inning of the last game on a long tourney weekend.
In otter words, you don't get to dog it just because it's the en of practice an I know you're already tired. Show me how deep you're gonna dig when the game is in the line in extra innings of a multiple game day!
Last inning of the tournament. The championship on the line,Up by 1 run, bases loaded, 2 outs. My heart is going a mile a minute and I'm not the one pitching.
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