Is a Dynamic Warm-up Better Than a Static Stretch for Basketball Players?

To Stretch Or Not To Stretch?

To stretch or not to stretch? Different experts have different explanations as to the purpose of stretching and whether it should be incorporated into a pre-workout, pre-practice or pre-game routine.

As a child, I never stretched, which probably was poor decision-making on my part, as I grew quite inflexible. However, shortly after I started stretching, as a sophomore rower in college, I suffered my first muscle pull. 

During college, when I started to coach, I equated stretching with wasted time. I worked a camp every summer and the counselors would compete to see who could delay the start of the camp by leading the longest stretching routines. When I worked with a junior college women's team, stretching involved the mouth more than the muscles.

Before beginning a workout or practice, one must loosen the muscles and prepare the muscles for the more intense movements. However, a static stretch is not the best means to accomplish this.

Instead of using a static stretch, the traditional reach and hold stretch, an athlete should use a dynamic warm-up to activate and prime the muscles for the workout. A recent study concluded: "Because convincing scientific evidence supporting the injury-reducing and performance enhancing potential of static stretching is presently lacking, it may be desirable for children to perform dynamic exercise during the warm up period and static during the cool down period," (Faigenbaum, et al.).

The study measured young athletes' vertical jump, long jump and shuttle scores after a static warm-up and a dynamic warm-up. "The data revealed that vertical jump and the shuttle run performance declined significantly following static stretching as compared to the dynamic warm-up and DYJ [dynamic warm-up plus 3 drop jumps from fifteen centimeters]. In addition the long jump performance was significantly reduced following the SS as compared to DYJ," (IBID).