Sports Massage aims to prevent injury as well as facilitate injury recovery. The first of my series looking in more detail at injury prevention tips examines why a warm up is so important. Warming up with a focussed, activity specific routine before exercise can boost performance and help reduce injury risk. And it doesn’t need to take long - 5 minutes can have significant benefits.
Go on….. build in these dynamic stretches for runners into your warm up today and let me know what you think once you have tried them!
These dynamic stretches are designed to target the specific movements involved in running to activate and lengthen muscles and mobilise joints to both improve performance and reduce injury risk.
Start each dynamic stretch with a shallow range of motion at a slow speed and progress to deeper ranges and greater speeds as your body allows.
Assess any asymmetries or restrictions in your movements so you can focus on addressing these and preventing issues developing, through additional focussed stretching or strength work. Sports massage can help this process by identifying areas of soreness, tension and weakness; increasing your awareness of how your body is responding to activity and in what ways it may be beneficial to adjust your training.