European Journal of Molecular & Clinical Medicine

Abstract

There is no doubt that time spend on warming up and cooling down will improve an athlete’s level of performance and accelerate the recovery process needed before and after training and competition. As a result, the coach must encourage the athlete to regard the warm up and cool down as an essential part of both the training session and competition itself.
Research work by McNair (2000) and Knudson (2001) suggests that the use of dyanamic stretches – slow controlled movements through the full range of motion- are the most appropriate exercises for the worm up. By contrast, static stretches are more appropriate for the cool down.