Henry (et al)
I didn't realise that this article would produce so much discussion. In
answer to your questions, ... I quote from the article:
" 1538 Australian army recruits aged between 17 and 34 years were allocated
randomly to either an experimental (n=735) or control (n=803 group after
giving informed consent. Each undertook the army's regimented recruit
training programme of 12 weeks duration. All recruits were examined by a
medical officer, and were excluded if significant prior lower limb injuries
existed. The aerobic fitness of each recruit was determined before
commencement o training using the 20 metre shuttle run test.
................. The experimental group performed a supervised protocol of
20 second static stretches to 6 key muscles groups before every physical
training session, as part of the warm-up. The control group performed no
stretches, but did perform the remainder of the warm-up protocol which did
not significantly stretch muscles. All signif lower limb injuries were
documented and diagnosed by one independent assessor, blind to group
membership. Data were then analysed using survival analysis, with and
without retrospective stratification of subjects or significant aetological
factors, which included initial fitness and age. "
You will have to order the article to get all of the statistical results.
but basically, they state that there was a far closer correlation with lower
limb injury and fitness (as measured by the shuttle run test) then there was
between injury and performing standard pre-exercise stretching regime. We
an only assume that exercise were taught and performed correctly. Their
closing statement reads " Further trials are required to determine whether
more intensive stretching protocols have a prophylactic effect, or whether
stretching has a prophylactic effect on other poplations."
Taken from R P Pope et al 1996 A Randomised trial to determine whether
pre-exercise stretching prevents injury Proceedings of the 1996 National
Physiotherapy Congress page 193
I hope that this povides some of the information that you were looking for.
Linda
----- Original Message -----
From: "Henry Tsao" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: 16 October 2000 00:19
Subject: Re: pre-exercise stretching
> Luke,
>
> As Marco and others have said, there are different ways of stretching and
> how long you stretch, and if you don't control this, then you do not
control
> the sample. This is what I mean.... 1538 people is a large sample; can you
> tell me that they told each person to stretch exactly the same way?? Can
you
> say that these people are all similar in age?? Can you also say that they
> did the same exercises at the same intensity after stretching?? Wouldn't
> these be better controlled if we only had a small sample?? To me, it would
> be too difficult to relate stretching to injury unless you control all
these
> factors, and you are not going to do this with such a large random
sample!!
> These are the things I wanted to ask Linda to clear up before I continued
> any further.
>
> I am aware of literature that suggest stretching doesn't do anything for
> injury prevention, but I am also aware of literature that states
stretching
> does prevent injury. Does this mean one literature is wrong and the other
is
> right?? Of course not!!
>
> Until we get more detail from Linda, it is useless talking about the RCT
of
> 1538... as with your use of sarcasm, don't worry about it, I am Asian, and
> we don't have sarcasm in Asian languages :P
>
> Henry***
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