Warm Up For Soccer – Does Stretching Prepare the Body?
In any soccer game or training the muscles of your body are going to be challenged in many ways. Since soccer is now a game of sudden bursts of energy with recovery, the muscles must be prepared to handle the instantaneous movements of stops -starts and change of direction. A warm up that raises the core temperature, incorporates the movements that occur in a game and gets touches on a ball prepares you to be successful on the soccer field while avoiding injury. Unfortunately a poor warm up leads to the opportunity for a muscle strain, ligament tear or broken bone. In the past a typical warm up would be to go for a five to ten minute jog, then perform static stretching. Static stretching is holding a muscle in a lengthened position for a period of time. The old standard was to hold a muscle stretch three times for a count of thirty. There are still many people that still do this. As time has gone by in the last ten years this type of warm up and stretch has gone to the wayside and is c
