No stretch warm up question

Of course you should stretch. It should be a part of your strength and conditioning program. But, stretching prior to game and practice IMAO is not necessary and a complete waste of time. If it were not, we would stop practice every time we put in a sub to make sure he was properly stretched. Ease into practice with increasing intensity in drills, OK. Team stretch is basically only useful as a team building exercise and get together for HC to talk or rah rah.

Because it's the way it's been done forever and let's face it, we're, on the whole, not exactly the most out of the box thinkers on the planet.

then they go back into the locker room and sit for 20-30 minutes. It makes no sense at all. Some do it because the pros do it but thats a different clientele. I have to warmup now because I am old. It took until I was 25-26 before I really needed to warmup. 

When I awaken each morning the first thing I do is stretch.

The US Army, Marines, and all other services perform a morning "Daily Dozen" work out. The services are a team.

Team warmups are a tradition that fosters identity, unity, and teamwork. IMO it has value and is not a waste of time. It lets everyone know...we're here, and this is our team...we do everything as a team.

Every PE class I've seen has done a warm-up at the start of class.

We didn't warm-up one year but when we asked the players, they didn't like it. They liked not having to do a warm-up, but most said they'd like to do a warm-up. We actually had way more injuries in practice the year we didn't warm-up compared to when we did.

This is the only reason I can see to do it.  

You should do dynamic during both.

Is it going to win you a state championship? No, but it is better than static.

A team that has won the past 6 consecutive state titles in MO does almost zero dynamic stretching.



A dog doesn't stretch before it chases a car. In the end it comes down to if your dogs are better than my dogs.

We only do dynamic stretches, during practice and in pre-game. The whole routine takes about 5-10 minutes to complete, the kids are warmed up and loose and ready to go. We do static stretching at the end of every practice as a cool-down. The basketball kids did static stretching and foam rolling for 10 minutes to finish the day. Worked out well.

Our kids do about a 3 minute dynamic "thing" before games just for the pump. We then run about 8 plays, then play. We go out (leave the locker room) @ 15-20 minutes before kick off. We were always tired from too much warm up in my early years. It's just what we do.

Anyone have some research that may provide some evidence to suggest that dynamic warm-ups are not that useful?

I want to remove that time from our practice plans as a dedicated activity. I firmly believe that a special teams type circuit at the beginning of practice would provide similar effects, be useful, and create more efficiency for a team, like us, that are already time strapped.

Convincing certain people in our organization to do away with them is needed though and research may help that.

Just my unlearned opnion, but cheetahs that chase gazelles don't spend the previous 8 hours sedentary while crammed into desks, or on the couch playing Xbox, or eat from a drive through to the point they're an adolescent pre-diabetic. They're also somewhat active as a lifestyle cause wherever they go they have to walk their own ass there.

Exactly. Ever seen your dog or cat wake up? First thing they do is stretch.

A sleeping cat who suddenly sees a mouse in the room does not stretch 1st.

A couple of things. I would say, like the majority of people above, warm-ups and stretching are done as a matter of habit.

That being said I think there is certainly some validity in the idea that the body needs to be warmed up. My uneducated opinion would be you need to get a sweat going (and no it doesn't necessarily have to be a sweat but the the general idea of getting the body temperature elevated and blood flowing is the goal).

Now, this can be done in a variety of different ways and, in my opinion, they each have strengths and weaknesses.

Dynaimic stretching is good for getting the body moving but also it's good for focusing on general team culture. This is a great time to emphasize getting behind the line, finishing through the line, everyone claps, etc. This means that all coaches need to be focused on their position group and holding them accountable. If half the staff is throwing the ball on the other side of the field it's not exactly useful.

I prefer doing warmups with drills so we can steal an extra 10 minutes of practice time. Drills are great for working on skills but they do come with a downside. The big downside I would say is there isn't the team building effect that you get with dynamic warmups. Again this is debatable and could be done during different times but there is certainly a team building effect of having everyone doing the same thing at the same time.

To go to the original post we've used defensive position warm-ups before. It's not overly difficult, essentially it goes down to the first stage of Indy time. This could be something as simple as stance and starts and initial reads. I like the idea of the post above with a Special Teams circuit. No, need to overthink it, just start with base level drills and slowly build up the tempo.