In ancient times there where very little stretching done separately. The Chinese were the only armies of ancient times to document full range of motion warming up before battle. In the turn of the century a form of bounce stretching became the norm, then in the forties the Nazis put science to work for the first time  when their scientists determined it was an advantage to use it in a warming up of the body. Those same scientists spawned the revolution of Russian science which as most of us know spawned the Bulgarian's , the English, the Germans, the Americans, and so on.

The Russians felt that there warm up should be with the weights itself . Done in a very slow controlled fashion then slowly increasing the speed to reach maximum effort. This lead the American institutions to study the subject further and recently they discovered that stretching as the Russians noted, was the only beneficial way to perform warm up with the action itself, not separate stretching.

Now that I’ve given you the gest of the evolution in a nut shell. Guy’s like Anderson's stretching book put it simply for individual sports, from the aspect of the muscle groups used. Makes sense but reality in double blind studies has shown otherwise. Most athletes tell me that those of us who grew up with a stretching routine, for our chosen sport, never forget the increased range of motion. In power sports however this might not be a good thing. Warming up with the actual movement might serve us better. By allowing the muscle, ligament and tendon the action and range of motion to our specific sport - obtaining depth in squatting for example. Others profess its the only way to get down to the depth before putting on their suits.

So when injury is the topic, do we stretch from our past experience or do we just warm up slowly with the apparatus in the range of motion? I personally have tried for two years not stretching separately, and I feel it is adequate to warm up stretching with the range of motion, slowly while keeping perfect form. Now if I were to hurt myself, I would bring the regiment of stretching back in order to get my body mechanics back to full range of motion weight free, then commence lifting again.

I have personally evaluated hundreds of athletes, at a great cost and time, and I feel that the issue of massage and chiropractic treatment 5-7 days before a completion stretches the fascia and musculotendonous tissues out of the greater motor and fine coordinated ranges of motion, therefore off setting the lifters sense of feeling tight before a competition. However weekly massage is optimal if you can afford it. The bi-weekly Acupuncture is a must in high volume training for tweaking perfect body communication, Spinal manipulation is beneficial if you can’t get the release in soft tissue first, remember muscle moves bone not he other way around.

It is imperative to be tight while lifting in a high caliber of lifting, but it must be a good tight not a painful, discomforting, or debilitating tight. There must be clear view of range of motion pain free that accomplishes the task and gets a pass from the judges. Experiment safely and for the period of a month to 2 before dismissing these actions.

To contact Dr. Mangan please call 905-844-0072 or email gama@allstream.net .