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Warm up?

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 something to think on.  I think the conclusion that they reach - individuals differed in their response to different warm-ups is probably pretty accurate!
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Edinburgh Flats said…
Thank you for sharing this valuable info> i was completely unaware of this.
January 23, 2012 at 7:54 AM
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