Dynamic Stretching vs. Static Stretching: Which is Better Pre-Workout? | Podcast Ep. 169

Foreign hello and welcome to the Evidence Based Chiropractor. I am your host, Dr. Jeff Langmaid. And today we are talking research dynamic versus static stretching. Warm up the effect on power and agility performance. If you you're listening to this, this is probably a question that you get asked weekly about stretching warmups in your practice. We're gonna dive pretty deep into a research article that was published in 2006 by the Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research. And it is a good one and it has a lot of valuable and practical information to help you guide your patients and to also help you for yourself additionally adjust your marketing. My live intensive immersion event is coming up June7,8,9 here in Tampa Flor. We're gonna build your marketing strategy. We're gonna start implementing it. We are creating content on the spot things you can take home with you and get going. And step up your practice, step up your marketing in a way that you can be proud of this year and in subsequent years as well. We have one super early bird ticket left, so last call on the super early bird tickets. If you wanna pick that up, you can get 65% off the standard ticket price if you are the last one to grab it. And you can pick it up@the evidencebasechiropractor.com Again that is the evidencebasedchiropractor.com events. As I said at the top, today we are talking dynamic versus static stretching. This paper is titled, as I said, dynamic versus Static Stretching the effect on power and Agility performance. So the researchers first started by taking a look at research past, so to speak, and they found or said quote Smith indicated that the general purpose of a pre exercise warmup is to increase muscle and tension and suppleness, to stimulate blood flow to the periphery, to increase body temperature and to enhance free coordinated movement. I could not agree more and I probably couldn't say it better myself, which is why I just utilized that quote we all know really warmup is key to injury prevention. Warmup, cool down, these are very, very key factors. And when you look at high end athletics we tend to see the warmup and the cool down exaggerated meaning the higher you go, the further you go with your athletic career, the more emphas emphasis is placed on warmup and cool down. Now some of this comes just from habit of coaches, athletic trainers. But research like this is really cool because it showcases that there actually is science behind it. So it's not just habit, it's not just somebody told somebody else that it'd be a good thing to do that might be how it started, but now the research is backing that up. So when we talk about dynamic warmups, there's a couple things to keep in mind. The goal, or really what's been shown with dynamic warm ups historically is really the goal of doing it is to improve knee joint position sense, to increase oxygen uptake, to lower lactate concentration and to raise blood pH, to improve the efficiency of thermoregulation and to improve performance. So those are some of the things that have been again looked at in the past relative specifically to dynamic warm up. And this research publication really highlights the fact that a dynamic warmup, quite frankly, just has gains over no warmup at all and over static warmup as well. So you may be thinking to yourself, okay, great, sounds cool, but what's the difference? What activities constitute a dynamic warmup? What constitutes a static stretching warmup? So there's quite a few. I'm gonna list them all there. I'm warning you, there are quite a few. But with the dynamic warmup, they Talked about performing 10 repetitions of each exercise. That was a bend and reach, a rear lunge and reach, turn and reach, a squat rower, power jump, prone, row, push up, windmill, diagonal lunge and reach. So those were the calisthenic exercises, they called them as part of the dynamic warmup. Now you can see there's a lot there, but when you think about just the movements themselves, they can be done relatively quickly. There was a couple movement drills also included in the dynamic warmup. Those movement drills were verticals, laterals, crossovers, skips and shuttle sprints. So again, probably nothing that's out of the realm of possibility. Nothing that really requires, excuse me, any specialized equipment, which is also advantageous, right? Especially if you're treating a lot of weekend warriors or wannabe athletes or kids not having to get into crazy, you know, I don't know. Crazy apparatus is a good thing, right? It's much more likely, reduces friction, much more likely that they'll do it. So I'm going to repeat those dynamic warmup exercises and movement drills one more time. Bend and reach, rear lunge and reach, turn and reach, squat rower, power jump, prone, row, push up, windmill, diagonal lunge and reach. And those movement drills pretty straight up verticals, laterals, crossovers, skip and shuttle sprint. So there's a lot there, but really it shouldn't take more than five to 10 minutes to do it. All those. Now let's look at the static stretching. So that's the dynamic. Let's take a look at what they Constituted as a normal static stretching warmup, this included overhead arm pull, turn and reach, rear lunge and reach, hamstring stretch, calf stretch, quadricep stretch, posterior hip stretch, trunk flexion, extension stretch, five step jump, T drill, and a medicine ball throw. So those were more of the static stretching. Actually, scratch that five step jump, T drill and medicine ball throw. The static stretch warmup were overhead arm pulls, turn and reach, rear lunge and reach, hamstring stretch, calf stretch, quadricep stretch, posterior hip stretch, flunk, trunk flexion, extension stretch. Wow. If you stuck with me through all that, I give you a lot of credit. There was a lot of stuff there, so. But I wanted to frame exactly what they were. So you didn't have any questions on that. If you want to dive in, as always, this research article will be in the show Notes so you can click through there. But let's start talking about now that we know what they did and there was a lot of it, let's start talking about what these researchers found. So they found. Here's one quote for you. They found quote results indicate that the dynamic warmup conferred a modest performance enhancement for all three measures of power and agility relative to the static or no warmup. These results are consistent with Bishop's review of the literature, indicating that an active warmup of moderate intensity is likely to significantly improve short term performance on a range of tasks as long as fatigue is not induced. So that's a key component here. When you start to talk about dynamic warmups with maybe your patients, maybe you're thinking about, even for yourself, it's not about getting to that fatigue point. When their fatigue comes in on the warm up side, performance will suffer. That's what the research has shown. But if you can get warmed up and dynamically and not hit that fatigue, you are very likely going to see performance enhancements. So how does this all play out? Well, there's a couple things. There's at least two theories on why pre exercise stretching might decrease subsequent performance relative to the dynamic warmup. First is neural activation by repeated stretches and that really correlates to the motor units available for contraction. So it seems as though with static stretching there's almost a negative correlation there. And that can inhibit performance. If the static warmup reduces neural activation relative to the dynamic performance and power, performance and agility tasks might be diminished. Again, if you're not able to recruit the muscle fibers necessary, if not able to recruit the motor units necessary, there's very likely going to be a diminishment in performance. Dynamic Stretching doesn't seem to have that negative side effect, so to speak. So let's take a look at one more quote from these researchers. It's a paragraph, but it really frames the entire thing. So the researchers found, quote, for tasks requiring power and agility, the results suggest that a dynamic warmup might offer performance benefits not found with static stretching or no warmup. It is likely that a dynamic warmup similar to that used in this study will achieve general warm up goals without invoking the mechanical and neural activation drawbacks associated with acute static stretching. For tasks demanding a high degree of flexibility, power and agility, warmup activities should be sequence. So static stretching, if desired, is followed by dynamic progressive movements that mimic the goal activity without inducing fatigue. So that really puts it all together, right? When we look at dynamic stretching, there's none of the negative side effects, performance side effects, let's say, that are typically associated with static stretching. So you're already starting out at a good point. And what they're seeing is actually not only do you minimize or negate all of those negative side effects and performance, but you actually enhance the ability to have power and agility with your performance. Because again, very key part of that last statement, progressive movements that mimic the goal activity. So mimicking the goal activity, dynamically stretching by utilizing the final activity or working around that activity, very, very important. And again, why? Well, we look back to what they said earlier in the article, right? Increasing blood flow to the area, increasing flexibility, very, very important. But do not get to that fatigue point. You do not want to induce fatigue to get those benefits. When you induce fatigue now, you start to come up against those what I'll call negative side effects on performance. That would also be seen if you just would have stretched statically. So there's a lot of information, quite a few lists there, especially talking about the dynamic and the static stretching. I could speak for myself. I'm a runner. I probably run four to five times per week, a couple miles each time. And I static stretched for years and years and years. And just a couple months ago I started to do dynamic stretching. And I'll tell you, it's just, it's made my workouts easier and I've noticed less issues. I've never had huge issues with my knees, knock on wood. But I was having a little bit of trouble with one of my knees and since I started dynamically stretching, it might be just coincidence, but I haven't had that be a challenge. So if you have patience, I think the take home message from this paper is if you have patients that are asking you about stretching, I would highly encourage them to include dynamic stretching in their warmth. If you have somebody getting back to activity after time off, you have us, a golfer getting back after hurting, low back or something of that nature. Doing dynamic stretching prior to that activity is probably a really good idea for that individual, not only for injury prevention, but also really for performance enhancement. Now, you're not going to tell them that you know dynamic stretching is going to shave three strokes off their game anytime soon, but getting them back to the level that they're performing, the level they expect to perform at, is a great thing for you and your practice. Especially if you're the person that helped guide them to that point. They're going to associate you and the information you gave them with those positive gains. And that's an awesome place to be when you could help the people in your community. Obviously, that's what it's all about, right? Help people reach their goals and expectations. That's what it's all about. That's what this episode was all about. And again, if you want to step up your marketing, I'd invite you grab that last Super Early Bird ticket. You can pick it up@the evidencebasedchiropractor.com events. I'm super pumped for this live immersion event. I've been building up to it for probably a year or two. I've gotten so many questions about people asking, asking if I can help them grow their practice. This is the opportunity to do so. Check it all out@the evidencebasedchiropractor.com events and I hope you have a great week in practice and I'll talk to you soon.

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