Now that the freshman 15 are starting to hang about more and more students are heading over to Goldstein gym to run on the track, shoot hoops, join intramural teams, and impress the opposite sex with the how much they lift or how long they can last on the stair masters. Failure to properly stretch before working out, though, can lead to more problems than you want to deal with. It’s hard to realize how much it is needed but even our student athletes have spoken on the importance of stretching.
Senior accounting major Nicholas Sammartano shared his experience with injuries he obtained during his career as a baseball pitcher.
Sammartano had Tommy John surgery to repair torn elbow ligaments in his left arm, which is one of the most common injury in college and pro baseball. Since then he has learned the importance of stretching.
“I have to take many precautions after my surgery, it’s a year recovery but it depends on the athlete. For me, personally, I was in a hard cast for two weeks and then was given a movable brace,” said Sammartano. “I have to do daily active release therapy to help prevent scarred tissue from building up and have limited throwing and activity, which has to be kept very light to prevent the tear from happening again.”
The coaches and the athletic trainer have the baseball team go through multiple exercises and stretches to help the athletes avoid serious injuries such as that which Sammartano experienced. The exercises that the athletic teams do help them improve muscle development, increase range of motion, reduce injury, and helps wake up the body and get the blood circulating to the muscles and joints that they are going to use.
Sophomore education major and guard on the women’s basketball team Margo Hackett shared that to avoid the most common injuries of tendentious and torn ACLs, the women’s basketball team does a lot of dynamic warm-ups such as jumping jacks and other fast-paced stretches. While those who have been in sports for majority of their lives like Hackett and Sammartano know to stretch, many students who simply workout in the fitness center don’t always take such precautions to help protect their bodies from such injuries.
“I go to the gym at least three or four times a week and usually either lift weights or ride the bike,” said freshmen psychology major Stacey Morvitz. “I stretch after working out if I have time but because I follow the bus schedule, I am normally limited on time and will skip stretching if I don’t have time to squeeze it in, but I feel that the exercises that I do don’t really require me to stretch out beforehand.”
Studies have shown, though, that even the simplest of exercises, no matter how strenuous, still need to be performed only after stretching as well as followed by a post-workout cool down. Be careful, though—over stretching the muscles will do more harm than good. Know ahead of time what muscle groups that you plan on working out as you go to the gym or before you decide to play a pickup game of any sport so that you can stretch correctly for those specific muscles.
If you plan on just doing cardio such as running try to stretch out your legs and back, targeting your lower back, quads, calves, and torso. If you plan on working with weights make sure to stretch your triceps, biceps, upper and lower back as well as whichever main group of muscles and other main muscles you decide to beef up that day.
Don’t forget to get your heart pumping as well, do exercises such as jumping jacks or jogging a lap around the track or doing about five minutes on one of the stationary bikes. If not, you can find yourself learning the hard way like junior communications major and former Pace cheerleader Rubin Caban.
“I have had multiple injuries due to not stretching or warming up properly,” said Caban. “I go to the gym six days a week and will run as well as work with the weights but learned my lesson on needing to stretch after I pulled my shoulder twice and also suffered from a separated meniscus. Now I stretch before my warm up run and after as well.”