Steve Bizzaro
April 10, 2013
Assignment
Two articles that I will discuss are Reasons not stretch by Gretchen Reynolds and Acute effect of passive static stretching by J.C Gerely. . In the article by Gretchen Reynolds researchers discovered, that static stretching can lessen jumpers’ heights and sprinters’ speeds. In this reading two studies were done, a study being published this month in The Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, concluded that “if you stretch before you lift weights, you may find yourself feeling weaker and wobblier than you expect during your workout”. This means that you are not getting your best results from your workout and this can affect your performance in your sport, which at the college level is unacceptable at any division. The second study researchers at the University of Zagreb began going through hundreds of volunteers who stretched and then jumped, dunked, sprinted, lifted or otherwise had their muscular strength and power tested. According to their calculations, static stretching reduces strength in the stretched muscles by almost 5.5 percent, with the impact increasing in people who hold individual stretches for 90 seconds or more; this puts you at a disadvantage against your opponents without even knowing it. What I learned from this reading is that your performance after warming up with stretching is likely to be worse than if they hadn’t warmed up at all. The second article talked about the acute effect of passive static stretching on