For many this is a difficult questions to answer, let alone choose what kind of stretching to perform. All over the world athletes both young and old dutifully go haphazardly through their routines prior to training or competing, attempting to warm up. Typically the warm up has included light aerobic activity followed by static stretching. Over recent years, research has been provided stating that this style of warming up is not effective but for some reason coaches and athletes still use it! How, then, should we warm up?

As coaches, trainers and parents we all want our athletes to lower their incidence of injury and increase performance.  Although Most professional athletes and college teams are now utilizing dynamic warm-ups instead of static stretching before training or competition, and the trickle down to youth and recreation sports has begun, static stretching still has its place as an important part of the warming up and cooling down processes. 

Static Stretch or Dynamic Warm-up? We feel that the right warm up should accomplish two things: loosen muscles and tendons to increase range of motion, and warm the body up. With this in mind its clear that athletes need a combination of both a dynamic/active warm-up and static stretching. Our trainers typically begin with  5 minutes of foam rolling followed by an incorporation of both dynamic & static stretching.

Without getting too technical here’s an example of a Pride and Momentum³ warm up for practice, training, or competition:

5 Minutes of the foam roller:

1. Calves
2. Outer Calves
3. Inner & Outer Thigh
4. Hip Rotators
5. Hip Flexors
6. Upper Back
7. Lats

Static Stretches:

1. Calf Stretch
2. Hamstring Stretch
3. Inner Thigh Stretch
4. Kneeling Hip Flexor Stretch
5. Hip Rotator Stretch
6. Hand Walks
7. Chest Stretch

Dynamic Warm Up:

1. 25% Speed Jog/ Back pedal return
2. High Knees/ Butt Kicks return
3. Walking Lunge with a twist/ Backward Lunge with twist return
4. Side Shuffles
5. Walking Knee Hug/ Walking quad stretch return
6. 50% Speed Jog/ Back pedal return
7. Frankenstein Walk
8. Power skips
9. Carioca
10. Hydrants
11. Modified Mountain Climbers
12. 100% Sprint/ Back pedal return

*For larger groups skip the foam roller*