Conditioning Research

I have had stuff on here before about warm ups, mainly discouraging static stretching as a warm up since it seems to impair performance and do nothing to prevent injuries or soreness.  Dynamic stretches or mobility work seems to have more promise. Anyway, there was a post on the excellent Sweat Science blog (reading that blog just makes me want to give up because he does all this stuff so well!) which looked at a recent study about the impact of different warm up protocols on swimming performance - The ideal warm up for swimmers It is well worth reading the post and it prompted me to search around because initially I could not find the study to which it referred.  I did find the actual thesis from the student who did the work however .  What is interesting to me is that 37% of the sample performed best with no warm up whatsoever.  It may be specific to the event that was being measured and I am sure that there are confounding factors in the study, but it is so...

Every now and again a really nice little study pops up as I scan the news.  This morning I saw this bit of research in the International Journal of Sports Medicine: Listening to Music Affects Diurnal Variation in Muscle Power Output. I am only going by the abstract but they had people do the Wingate Test - a set time pedaling at maximum speed against a constant force - either at 7am or 5pm, with a 10 minute warm up..... either listening to music or not listening to music during the warm up. Power was always better in the afternoon if there was no music in the warm up.  With music, the difference in the average power disappeared and the difference in peak power was lessened.  Music in the warm up also boosted both peak and mean power. The researchers suggest that as it is a legal method and an additional aid, music should be used during warm-up before performing activities requiring powerful lower limbs' muscles contractions, especially in the morning competitiv...

I've had stuff here before that questions the value of static stretching.  Here is more: Effects of Dynamic Warm-up on Lower Body Explosiveness Among Collegiate Baseball Players. It is the same again.....static stretching makes subsequent performance worse, while dynamic stretches improve it. A good commentary here from Mike Reinold.  

Well long drawn out tough warm ups seem to.   It makes sense - you get knackered warming up and can't perform as well in the event.  ( abstract here) I reckon they coudl have got even better results with even less of a warm up. "Our study compared a standard warm-up, with what we termed an experimental warm-up," explains Tomaras. "We interviewed a number of coaches and athletes to come up with the traditional warm-up." The experiment involved high performance sprint cyclists performing a traditional warm-up lasting about 50 minutes with a graduated intensity that ranged from 60 to 95 per cent of maximal heart rate before ending with several all-out sprints. The experimental warm-up was much shorter at about 15 minutes, and was performed at a lower intensity, ending with just a single sprint. The researchers conducted a number of tests following each warm-up to accurately measure the athlete's power output and fatigue. "What we found, was that th...

I've talked about joint mobility before. Most recently I have referred to the z health seminar I went to with mc . Here is another approach from Dutch Lowry It would be an exercise session in itself for many

Girls who spent 20 minutes before soccer practice focusing on exercises aimed at improving strength, awareness, and neuromuscular control sustained 29% fewer lower-extremity injuries than those who did not warm up, Torbjørn Soligard, a Ph.D. student at the Norwegian School of Sport Sciences here, and colleagues reported online in BMJ. The warm up started with running exercises at slow speed combined with active stretching and controlled contacts with a partner. The running course included six to ten pairs of cones (depending on the number of players) about five to six metres apart (length and width). The second part consisted of six different sets of exercises; these included strength , balance, and jumping exercises, each with three levels of increasing difficulty. The final part was speed running combined with football specific movements with sudden changes in direction. The full paper is available below and is well worth a read. Comprehensive warm-up programme to prevent injuries i...

Thanks for the comments on the last post. Todd - Z Health - I bought the basic DVD and thought it was OK but a bit over priced. Cobb is another one who makes almost mystical pronouncements about joint mobility. Seems like a good guy in general though. I think there is probably enough free material out there on mobility as I pointed to in the last post. It is the peer reviewed research that I'm interested in. Brian - thanks for pointing me towards those videos. They're great. I don't agree with all the CrossFit stuff, but the free resources they've made available are fantastic. Here is the warm up video - joint mobility stuff and then some basic exercises to cover the whole body.

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.

After one of my recent posts about stretching - Don't do it before exercise - someone commented asking how they should prepare for exercise if not by static stretches. The New York Times has the answer today Stretching: The Truth If you’re like most of us, you were taught the importance of warm-up exercises back in grade school, and you’ve likely continued with pretty much the same routine ever since. Science, however, has moved on. Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes’ warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but actually bad for you. There is a good video there too (I've no idea how to embed that one in the blog....)

I've previously pointed to studies (e.g. here ) that indicate that static stretching should be avoided prior to exercise - especially if your exercise is one that needs explosive power . Here is a study which accepts that position but indicates that you can minimise this negative impact. If static stretching is to be included in the warm-up, some sort of high-intensity sport-specific skills based activity is completed as a final warm up prior to going on court/field. So stretch before if you must but if you do, then add some high intensity stuff - jumps or sprints - to get your power back.... Negative effect of static stretching restored when combined with a sport specific warm-up component There is substantial evidence that static stretching may inhibit performance in strength and power activities. However, most of this research has involved stretching routines dissimilar to those practiced by athletes. The purpose of this study was to evaluate whether the decline in performance...

We have touched on this before . Here is another study - this time in the context of football - which identifies that you should not do static stretching as part of your warm up..... The Effect of Static Stretching on Phases of Sprint Performance in Elite Soccer Players . Static stretching before sprinting resulted in slower times in all three performance variables. These findings provide evidence that static stretching exerts a negative effect on sprint performance and should not be included as part of the preparation routine for physical activity that requires sprinting.

Actually stretching is OK but not as a warm up - that seems to be the view of both scientists and coaches now. For example, Vern Gambetta comments : I want to make sure that people do not get the impression that stretching is not important. Stretching as a means to improve functional flexibility is very important. It is a separate training unit. Stretching is not warm-up! This New York Times piece concludes: Another systematic review, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was published in the journal Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise in 2004. It looked at multiple studies and found that stretching “was not significantly associated with a reduction in total injuries,” but also concluded that more research was needed. For now, many experts say that what may work is a quick warm-up, like low-impact aerobics or walking. It also helps to ease into an activity by starting off slow and then increasing speed, intensity or weight (for lifting). So how do you warm up, if ...