Stretching and Warming Up

Happy 4th of July! I got my fair share of fireworks last night, so I'm laying low and forgoing more celebration tonight. Since I'm laying low, I figured that I'd put together a nice little lesson plan for all the kids at the WTA Heyer Park Tennis Drill Camp that I teach at every summer (which I get to start teaching at tomorrow!).

Tennis-specific drills aside, I figured that I'd put together a warm-up that the kids on my courts could run through. The typical tennis warm-up, at least at the summer drill camps I attended in my youth, has always been "run, sit, stretch, hit". I'm hoping to put something together that will be a little bit more helpful than butterfly stretches and toe-touches.

As I was looking for ideas, I came across this article from the USTA. I got a lot out of it on exactly which types of stretches to do and when to do them. Basically, any activity has 3 different aspects of the warm-up and cool-down that should be included: active warm-up, dynamic stretching, and static stretching.

Active Warm-up: Basically, the active warm-up involves doing some low-intensity, repetitive activity that gets the heart pumping a little bit. It could be something like a jog, jumping rope, running in place, etc. The active warm-up, as its name implies, should be done as part of the warm-up, prior to the actual activity/exercise/workout. For my tennis courts, I'm just going to have them do about 2 minutes of running forwards, backwards, and sideways on the tennis courts.

Dynamic Stretching: Dynamic stretching uses speed of movement, momentum and active muscular effort to bring about a stretch . However, unlike static stretching, the end position is not held in dynamic stretching. A few examples of dynamic stretches would be side lunges, deep lunges, hip adductor swings, hip abductor swings, "inch worms" (my personal favorite), arm circles/swings, etc. Dynamic stretches properly prepare the body to perform an activity without a decrease in performance, and should be done prior to the workout or activity.

Static Stretching: Static stretching is the stretching that most everyone was always told to do in gym class; "sit down, put one leg out, and touch your toes", "the butterfly", "pull your leg to your butt", etc. All of these are examples of static stretches. Static stretching should be done AFTER the workout or activity is completed. There are a whole bunch of studies out there that show that muscles have decreased power and strength immediately following a static stretching session. Performing static stretches post-workout, however, can be beneficial. According to the article, "static stretching is most commonly used and recommended now after the activity when the body is very warm, and maximal elongation via stretching can occur. Static stretching after the workout is also thought to speed recovery and decrease soreness in addition to increase muscle length". I'll explore this claim in another post... But for now, just know that static stretching does have a time and a place in athletic endeavors.

One good pointer that I picked up from surfing thousands of CF blogs is to set a timer for 15 minutes. That's how long a good warm-up should take (it might even be on the low end time-wise). Don't end your warm-up until you hit that 15 minute mark. I've been doing that for the last few months and have seen a noticeable improvement in my flexibility, both before, during, and after the workout.

Just for the record, there's a picture on here of Federer because I typed the word tennis, and whenever I think of tennis, I think R-Fed. I searched for this picture, and I found a blog with an article titled "The Best and Worst Fist Pumps of All Time". I got a kick out of it, so I figured I'd share it on here as well...

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Today's music library addition is from a band that I've never really heard of or listened to before, but this song feels like it'd be a good fit for a high intensity workout, and judging by Federer's reaction, he's clearly diggin' it. I'll personally test it out sometime and report back on here...

AFI - Summer Shudder

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WOD 100704 Sunday

Warm-up: Trying out my new tennis warm-up to see how long/effective it is.
-Forward, backward, side-to-side jogs, 1.5 minutes; 2 court high skip; 2 court butt kicks; arm circles forward; arm circles backwards; 1 court side lunges, both directions; inch worms; deep lunges; samson stretches.
S/S: Ring work. Holds, tuck holds, L-sits, handstands (?)
WOD: 5 rounds for time of:
-5 Ring Push-ups
-15 Overhead Squats, 45#/PVC
-30 Double-unders
Finish: Static stretching