Are You in the 21st Stretching Century?

I recently received an e-mail from Marc Dagenais as part the softball performance tips he gives out in his free newsletter.  This one was about dynamic stretching.

Now I have to admit, the first time I heard about this, I thought it was just some quack "trend" that would be forgotten about after a few months.  After all, I'd been doing static stretching all my life too.  But the more I learn about it, the more it makes sense and the more convinced I am that it's the best thing for fastpitch softball.  

Of course, not everyone is so open-minded.  Here's an ecerpt from Marc's e-mail that illustrates eactly that point and also gives you doubters something to think about.

"There's a coach that I've known quite a few years who reads my emails that came up to me to tell me that all the hype around all that "dynamic stuff" is just B.S. and he doesn't believe in that $&*@.

Now, I know this coach, it's not surprising coming from him. He's very opinionated, close-minded, believes he's always right and when he's not happy with how things are going, he yells and gets mad.

Just as a curiosity, I asked him: "Why do you believe that dynamic warm-ups is just a bunch of B.S.?"

He answered that he's been using static stretching for 25 years for himself and with all the teams he's coached and he never had any problems.

I replied: "So, if my 83-year old grandma has been a smoker all her life and is still healthy today, I must assume that smoking is good for me right?" (interesting perspective huh?)

You should have seen the look on his face. I think he got my point and didn't really know what to reply to this twisted logic. He mumbled something and left.

My point is this: we are creature of habits and habits are hard to change.

We are comfortable with routines and we hate change.

Trying to come up with a new way to warm-up is not always easy.

Athletes will say: "I don't feel like I've stretched".

The purpose of a warm-up is not to feel like you've stretched (which you get with static stretching), it's to make the muscle ready to perform and prevent injuries.

They muscles must be warmed, have adequate range of motion, and be ready to fire. Dynamic warm-ups accomplish that.

Some coaches will say: "I've used your stuff and I have an athlete that blew her knee out. Your stuff doesn't work."

First, it's not my stuff. It's just what almost every elite strength and conditioning coach and athletes now used to prepare themselves and while it helps decrease injuries, there will always be injuries in sports!

Bottom line, just because you've been doing something fora long time without problem doesn't mean there isn't a better way of doing it.

Watch out for Thursday, I'll release my brand new Dynamic Warm-Up for Softball System.

You don't want to miss that."

Hey Thursday is tomorrow!  One thing that's tough about making the switch to Dynamic Warm-Ups is knowing what to incorporate.  

• What exercises should your players be doing instead of the good old static stretch?  
  
• What order should these exercises be done in for optimal effectiveness?
  

Well, when I was learning, basically what I did was watch other teams that used dynamic warm-ups (DI schools and the USA National Team).  I took ideas from that and put it together to use for the teams I work with.  

If you don't have that luxury, however, OR if  you want a more complete set of instructions on exactly how to incorporate dynamic warm-up into your softball training, Marc's Dynamic Warm Up for Softball System will give you all of that PLUS he'll tell you how to properly use static stretching because it does have it's place too.  Be on the lookout for this brand new Dynamic Warm-Up for Softball resource tomorrow - Thursday!