proper stretching before and after games and practices
Stretching is important. But you have to know what types of stretches to do before and after games and practices. Static stretches, the ones where you hold your position for 30 seconds or so, are great for after games and practices, but harmful to performance if done before. Players need to do dynamic stretching before games/practices to activate muscles. Static stretching before a game will put muscles to sleep and reduce performance.
True 2 Hoops awesome athletic performance trainer Abel Gomez talks about proper stretching in the video below.
Following that is a great 10-minute warmup your team can do before practices and games to get muscles and tendons activated.
Click here for a great warmup to follow led by True 2 Hoops athletic performance coach Abel Gomez.
501-Proper Stretching Before Games
WARMUP EXERCISES - 10 MINUTES
The essentials of a sound warmup
Simply put, warming up is preparation for performance. So if you care about your performance, you should care about your warm up. The basic components of a quality prep session, which you'll see here, are:
1. elevating core temp and increasing blood flow to the muscles, and
2. a dynamic stretch stressing quality movement.
When you begin you want to start moving around to raise body temperature and blood flow. Here we used general athletic movements to do so (jog, shuffle, skips, etc.) working basic athletic coordination and movement quality while we get our temp up.
Next we start to incorporate more muscle lengthening movements while making sure, again, that movement quality is high. Notice that we don't really hold any stretches but instead just prepare the muscles to move through bigger ranges of motion. We don't want to put the muscles to sleep by holding them stretched, but instead just get them more pliable and ready for the demands it will be facing soon. Secondly the quality of the movement is for stability of the joints and proper patterning for the Central Nervous System (CNS) to ingrain good movement in the brain and muscles. The movements ingrained in your CNS is what will keep you healthy in the long run and keep you from potential injury when fatigued in a game or practice.
Remember to take the warm up seriously as you are literally preparing to perform. Incorporate these concepts and you will set up your athletes for both that day and their future.
Click here for a great warmup to follow led by True 2 Hoops athletic performance coach Abel Gomez.
daily team warmup for workout
