Did Dara Torres use PNF stretching before the Olympics?
No. Torres, who at age 41 became the oldest swimmer ever to compete in the Olympics, used something called “resistance stretching,” an intense workout to promote flexibility and strength. The idea is to simultaneously contract and elongate your muscles. For example, to strengthen your biceps, you would flex your arm in a biceps curl while a partner pulled your hand in the opposite direction. This technique is being marketed via a website and DVDs, with hard sell from other athletes who claim to use resistance stretching. There is no published research showing benefits for this type of training, according to Dr. William Kraemer of the Human Performance Lab at the University of Connecticut. “It goes back to Charles Atlas in the 1920s. He called it ‘dynamic tension.'” It isn’t really stretching, Dr. Kraemer said, but rather a form of strength training.
