Saturday, January 3, 2009

Stretching doesn't help the jump.....

Here is a fun video of a jump, then the news:




I have put lots on here previously about stretching - the general idea being that stretching does not tend to improve athletic performance. Here is another one in a similar vein. It might improve flexibility but doesn't improve performance.

Investigation into the long-term effects of static and PNF stretching exercises on range of motion and jump performance.

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the long-term effects of two different stretching techniques on the range of motion (ROM) and on drop jump (DJ). DJ scores were assessed by means of a contact mat connected to a digital timer. ROM was measured by use of a goniometer. The training was carried out four times a week for 6 weeks on 10 subjects as passive static stretching (SS), and on 9 subjects as contract-relax PNF (CRPNF) stretching. The remaining nine subjects did not perform any exercises (control group). One-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) results indicated that the differences among groups on DJ were not statistically different (F(2,27)=.41, p>.05). ROM values were significantly higher for both stretching groups, while no change was observed for the control group. In conclusion, static and proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) stretching techniques improved the ROM, but neither of the stretching exercises had any statistically significant effect on the DJ scores.



4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I do find that rather expected. I wonder if ballistic stretching would improve jump performance. How you found anything specific to that?

Your Digital Trainer,

Jeremiah

Chris said...

Hi Jeremiah

I don't know about ballistic stretching, but plyometrics - like the video - do seem to help.

Anonymous said...

That makes me sick. That kid is far from being ready for depth drops. Flexibility? I would argue that the exercise selection is a little off before I would have him stretch out.

http://thursday466.wordpress.com/

Chris said...

Kyle, the video was just for fun - it was the study I was pointing to