The farther the loadis away from the joint, the more force it will haveon it. I generally recommend that not stretch have more intensity than a 3 or 4 out of 10 (0 is no discomfort, 10 is extreme discomfort). Instead of just jumping to pushing down the knees of gymnast to get better lines or fix bent knees, I strongly suggest that people take time to figure out why the gymnast has bent knees to start with. This is where the third layer comes into play, the muscular soft tissue. These gymnasts typically dont have to work on flexibility too much to achieve full splits. 0, No. This approach may lead to a limited transference to actual skills. They also outline that longer durations of stretching (say up to 2 minutes per stretch) show diminishing returns. exercises, and stretching exercises are the only kind you are able to do, do them at least 3 times a week, for at least 20 minutes each session. I see many shoulder stretches, and hip stretches that I feel are putting a crazy amount of stress on joint capsules and ligaments. These are the muscles themselves, to a small degree the tendons that connect muscles to bones, and largely the nervous system. In all cases except two, (Janot et al., 2013; Peacock et al., 2014) there were no changes in performance measures following any of the SMFR protocols used. 2016. This second layer of joint capsule and ligaments helps provide more stability to the joint, with different portions of the capsule limiting certain ranges of motion. The physical examination of the glenohumeral joint: Emphasis on the stabilizing structures. After seeing so many gymnasts I worked with struggle, and to be honest suffer overuse injuries, I knew something had to change. These studies mainly look at chronic immobilization, like when people unfortunately need limb lengthening or tendon elongation procedures. The Mechanisms of Manual Therapy in the Treatment of Musculoskeletal Pain: A Comprehensive Model. Unfortunately, I feel the load at the end of the limb may contributemore tothe forceful hip impingement, and also contribute more to the fulcrum based instability/subluxation stretching the soft tissue and possibly irritating the hip joint. Helpful or Not? Department of Exercise and Sport Science University of Utah Most gymnastics coaches would agree that flexibility is an essential aspect of gymnastics training and performance. Forcing a split down into extreme ranges of an oversplit without a proper assessment behind it, asking a gymnast to perform over splits when they are not even close to a split on flat ground, or blindly pushing someone down just to be tough, is most definitely dangerous. The main reason as mentioned above is because the stretch pain reported may be coming from a few overlapping body structures, some we should be aiming to target (muscles, fascial tissue, some tendinous) and some we should not be (bony joints, ligaments, capsules, labrums, etc.). Meyers CA., et al. Does it make sense to take a gymnast who go theirinjury in the first place by rolling her ankle down and in and stretch the down portion more? Her ankles are very lax and she also tends to hang out in the down and in position that may predispose it to roll. Although research is conflicting, self soft tissue care as is seen with foam rolling and other tools may have a role in reducing perceived soreness and increasing blood flow to muscles. Traditional forms of these stretches may contribute to the development of an injury. Similar to the study above, it was found that while ankle range of motion did improve, there were no significant changes in the muscle extensibility outcomes that would indicate tissue change. Routledge: New York. An important note is that some athletes may have different bony morphology of their hips in which their femur or hip socket is more rotated forward (anteverted) or backward (retroverted). It is worth noting that both authors have extensive experience in elite level gymnastics, spending the majority of their career researching gymnastics biomechanics, injuries, and sports performance. Due to many gymnasts having inherent hypermobility, we do not want to place excessive stress on the ligaments and joint capsules of athletes. (Image credit: Unknown) Sit on the floor with straight legs at about 90 apart. One example of this would be replacing a commonly used shoulder stretches for overhead handstand flexibility in training. The average quality of studies included in this section of the review was slightly higher than the average qualities of the studies in the review overall. Every young childs body has certain unique characteristics that may predispose them to success in certain sports. As the 2018 systematic review outlines (25), it may make a positive effect on range of motion when properly done. If you are not into that and are just looking for a particular area of the body without the geeky stuff, please click the table of contents below to jump to a certain section. I typically have gymnasts perform moderate pressure that does not cause pain, for 10-30 seconds per muscle group, away from bony areas. We must educate ourselves on what components go into a full handstand or split positions, then be able to reverse engineer why a gymnast is struggling. Take them to a qualified medical professional for an assessment. I feel gymnasts should be doing regular soft tissue care routine to combat excessive stiffness that may negatively impact flexibility. improvements on how we have typically taught athletes/gymnasts to stretch their hip flexors, groin and lats. Simply throwing a bunch of random flexibility drills you recently saw at a clinic or on a video (Im majorly guilty of this one) is a quick way to ask for complaints of hip pain. In their concluding paragraphs, they write, Traditionally, rehabilitation literature has attributed increases in muscle extensibility observed after stretching to a mechanical increase in muscle length. This means the hip bone was slightly migrating out of the hip socket to reach such large ranges of motion. Also, think how they apply to the gymnasts skill profile. In this sport, training should be very constant since flexibility and coordination must be improved. If the exercises above are biasing stress on joint capsules and ligaments more so than the lat, teres major, and pec muscles, we should look for an alternative solution. Physiother Res Int 2002;7:1-13. Between coaching, treating, and consulting in gymnastics around the world, offering advice on flexibility has become a staple in my work. Oct 4 (15). Static stretching, dynamic stretching, active flexibility, and PNF stretching (proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation) are a few popular methods. Many people want to know what the best approach is, either static or dynamic, if they should be aiming to increase range of motion, what are the best drills, and so on. It consists of two upper-body sessions, and two legs and core sessions, hitting each muscle group twice per week. Three-Dimensional Mathematical Model for Deformation of Human Fasciae in Manual Therapy. (2, 5). In simple terminology, it means that they did show an increase in the range of motion, but not due to a significant change in structural muscle tissue length. For 12 Weeks, 2 days a week and 90 min. Unfortunately, this leaves the gymnast feeling very defeated as if something is wrong with them, not to mention still struggling with skills and possibly at an elevated injury risk. (17) Adjunctive radiographic X-Rays or advanced medical imaging can also be helpful to see a boney congruency. It alsomay impact their ability to control landings and tumble leading to decreased performance. Many gymnasts may be limited by their bony alignment, differently shaped hips, or less mobile capsule/ ligaments. They also echo the research covered already that emphasis how overly aggressive or excessive stretching duration can possibly have damaging effects on connective tissue(39). In a sport like gymnastics, where very high forces are going through shoulder, hip, and spine joints at extreme ranges of motion, this level of force can quickly cause already mobile passive tissues to stretch out more. Many people have heard about the muscles of the rotator cuff, biceps, triceps, lats, and so on. Keeping this in mind, we need to seriously consider that gymnasts have open growth plates and can suffer from ischial apophysitis or growth plate stress fractures if we blindly force split motion. Considering what type of ankle work you are doing with a gymnast who has an injury history like this is important for coaches to think about. IJSPT Oct 2013; 8(5): 554 578. Its for good reason too. This is not always the case, but the vast majority of young gymnasts fall into this category once you move past the recreational level. There are some cases where young children do not have natural hypermobility but are gifted in their bodyweight strength abilities. Not only do they happen quite a bit as a first time injury for a gymnast, they seem to keep popping up as re-occuring injuries for many gymnasts leading to cumulative issues down the road. If you are more curious about learning the medical side of hip injuries in hyper-flexible athletes, I highly recommend reading these articles. J Bone Joint Surg Am, 2013 Sep 18; 95 (18): e133, Dumount GD. Zollner AM., et al. Through very sophisticated mathematical models, they did show evidence of, a mechanistic multiscale model for stretch-induced sarcomereogenesis, in which chronic muscle lengthening is characterized through a scalar valued internal variable, the serious sarcomere number.. Cordasco FA. imo group link. 2007. However, my point is that in most cases with a gymnast (or many overhead athletes) we are looking to improve range of motion into this elevated position by improving the flexibility of specific soft tissues. 1-13. In spite of a fairly Surgical tubing also works, but again the tubing needs to be quite stiff. And Im not off the hook here. The same argument can be made for the hips of gymnasts. Take this gymnast for example, who has super wobbly ankles and does a lot of pre-hab for in an effort to minimize her risk. I did this for a decade as a gymnast, and for the first five years I was coaching. While on this note, there are a few stretches that really need to be advised against in gymnastics. Although its purely anecdotal, I have consulted with cases where x rays show a very similar phenomenon in gymnasts doing oversplits while getting hip xrays. (2 ed., pp. Many gymnasts with stiff hips could benefit from a bit less squatting and jumping, and repace those exercises with glute and hamstring work. More research is needed, but this concept of natural boney adaptations in gymnasts is a central idea I feel will emerge in years to come. This can be seen with the examples above. I view the different goals fo flexibility in this light. Much of the change in gymnastics to prevent these common injuries comes down to applying the research of anatomy as well as stretching and updated commonly used methods that may not fall in line with the literature. Trying to aggressively push through that bony or ligamentous limitation will only lead to pain and headaches for all involved. With this said, lets review some basic anatomy. Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research, 2012; 26(8) 2119 2129. The on-going process of training will include the development of strength, co-ordination, spatial awareness and the core gymnastics movement skills which are the foundation upon which high level and good quality gymnastics are based. The search was conducted on PubMed, WOS, Scopus, Sport Discus and Google Scholar databases, and . Doing a high volume of these movements may create ongoing stiffness in these areas, and as a result further contribute to the persistent loss of overhead mobility. In particular, the knee and elbow joints can be areas that if overly stretched, can become problematic. Being able to achieve a full over split, or even a regular full split for that matter requires many things to be going well from a movement point of view. Static stretching in 30-60 seconds bouts, done 5 times per week, for a total time of 5 minutes per muscle group per week, to the appropriate limit of discomfort, is supported by a majority of research to be optimal for increasing range of motion. Shibata KR, Mastuda S, Safran MR. Is there a distinct pattern to the acetabular labrum andarticular cartilage damage in the non-dysplastic hip with instability? I dove headfirst into the scientific literature over 2 years and starting playing around with many new methods in the gym and clinic. However, I have seen these types of problems snowball into huge injuries quickly in gymnasts I treat. You can read more about hamstring apophysitis here (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6322373/) and shoulder impingement syndromes here (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3945046/). We want to make sure we are not over-stretching or overstressing passive structures like the shoulder ligaments and capsules. And lastly, passive or active flexibility exercises alone will not have a substantial impact on the nervous system to change movement, build strength, or correct technique. It appears that a combination of mechanical factors (18, 25, 27-29), as well as neurological factors (18-21, 24, 25-26)), are reasons behind why regular stretching increases range of motion. flexibility changes in a gymnast. In parallel to the points made above, it is not that this stretch is inherently bad or dangerous for a gymnast. I suggest these to outline the complexity of the human body, in hopes that people are more cautious in some flexibility decisions they make. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2014 Jan;28(1):61-8. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0b013e3182956569, Peacock CA, et al. The point is that targeting the soft tissue of the hip flexor and quad may be a more optimal approach. Strength and Conditioning for Sports Performance. Gymnasts practice up to 30 hours a week and have regiments full of conditioning and exercises. For example, this research study (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26944667) recently looked at x-rays from professional ballet dancers during full straddle splits. As a result, gymnastic branch-specific stretching exercises increase the balance and flexibility parameters in a positive way; it is thought that the longer duration of training programs will have a positive effect on the athlete's performance. Underlying bony hip anatomy (retro or ante verted femur or acetabulum, depth of hip sockets, boney leg length discrepancy), Glute and deep hip rotator strength on the front and back leg, Neural tension in sciatic, femoral, piriformis, and quadratus femoris nerve, Lack of protective guarding against tissue injury, Coordinative dynamic stability of hip and core muscles, Underlying bony shoulder anatomy (retro or anteverted humerus or glenoid, depth of shoulder sockets), Pectoralis major and minor muscle extensibility, Thoracic spine extension and rotation joint mobility, Lower cervical retraction and rotation mobility, Forearm and wrist extension mobility for proper stacking, Thoracic outlet neural compression and extensibility, Coordinative dynamic stability of rotator cuff, scapular, and larger prime mover muscles, The ability to create whole body tension that optimizes storing energy within the bar bending, Tapping mechanics of hollow arch kicking, Finishing hollow position to carry momentum over the bar Enough repetitions to maintain technique memory, Warm Up Prepare the available flexibility athletes have, and prepare the body for training, Flexibility Circuits Look to increase joint flexibility or mobility through step by step circuits (more below), Cool Down Help the body slowly ramp down into recovery mdoe following a hard training session. They include rope, hoop, ball, clubs, and ribbon. The golf ball (ball of the upper arm bone or humerus) is inherently larger than the tee (socket of the shoulder or glenoid fossa). As mentioned above, the research mainly leans towards changes in perceived discomfort through neurological mechanisms over changes to muscle tissue, especially in the short term (41-42). This finding isnt inherently dangerous, or good as research always has its internal issues. Given that gymnasts already straighten their knees andtend to show very knee dominant landings (versus proper hip dominant squat deceleration landings), we really dont want to putting them more at risk for landing lock legged and having something going seriously wrong. Another version of an overhead stretch, pictured below, is an example of the opposite. You can see a video of our entire warm up here. Download My New Free 10 Minute Gymnastics Flexibility Circuits Send Me the Circuits! It is only one piece of the puzzle that must be used in combination with movement assessments, strength work, technique work, consistent practice, and periodization programs that calculate work to rest ratios. The issue is more about, The lack of assessments being used before and after stretching, The lack of flexibility exercises that target active muscular structures (muscles and tendons) over passive structures (ligaments and joint capsules), The lack of a consistency over intensity mindset that is supported by research, and also avoids aggressive techniques that may cause injury, The lack of individuality and specificity being used based on a gymnasts individual issue, The lack of stretching being used as one small piece for the overall flexibility approach that carries changes in range of motion to actual skills, The current body of research on stretching suggests that, Changes in the nervous system are likely the main reason why stretching overtime increases range of motion (changing stretch reflex, changing perception of discomfort, desensitization of specific nerves), Changes in the muscle or tendon tissue itself also likely occur (change in number of sarcomeres, length of sarcomeres, amount of stiffness in muscle tissue). 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