Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Gambetta on warm up

Vern Gambetta has commented on the NY Times article on warming up (and not stretching) that I pointed to yesterday.

Have a look

They talked about things in the article some of us figured out 35 years ago (Sorry for the sarcasm) but warm-up is just that, it is movement. Two of the exercises they illustrate in the article the straight leg march and the scorpion are two exercises I would NEVER do in warm-up. I think they are not inappropriate for warm-up and actually set the body up for injury. I was disappointed that nothing was said about the order and sequence in warm-up. I was left to believe that if you just throw a bunch of exercises together and call it dynamic then it is OK. Nothing could be further from the truth. I think warm-up must be orchestrated like a ballet. It should build in tempo from slower deliberate movements to fast dynamic movements leading directly into practice or the game.

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