Immediate Effect of “Duration of Static Stretching” on Strength and Power of Shortened Triceps Surae Muscle
Journal of Clinical Physiotherapy Research,
Vol. 10 No. 1 (2025),
15 Aban 2025
Abstract
Background : Muscle shortness is the cause of many musculoskeletal pain syndromes. Although stretching exercise reduces muscle shortness, the immediate effect of stretching on muscular strength and power needs further investigation. In this study, the immediate effect of "static stretching duration" on the isokinetic strength and power of shortened triceps Surae muscle (STSM) was investigated. Methods: It was a quasi-experimental study. In the descriptive part of research, the range of motion of the active dorsiflexion of 57 male students was measured. With the criterion of active dorsiflexion range of motion less than 20 degrees, 12 people (20.8±1.5 years, 177.7±4.7 cm, 74.4±12.9 kg) were selected for the experimental part of the research, which included 4 sessions. In the first session, the strength and power of the subjects was measured as a pre-test by an isokinetic dynamometer. In the next three sessions, in every session, one of the three static stretching protocols of 30, 120, and 360 seconds was randomly applied to STSM of each subject and Immediately after the stretch, strength and power were measured as the post-test. Data analysis was performed by dependent t-test and alpha level was set at 0.05. Results: Our findings showed that, compared to the pretest, the power was significantly increased by all three stretch protocols of 30 (P = 0.04), 120 (P = 0.03) and 360 seconds (P = 0.03). However, for muscular strength, 120 (P = 0.03) and 360 second (P = 0.03) stretch protocols led to significant increase, but 30 second stretch did not significantly increase it (P = 0.13). Conclusion: The present study showed that different durations of static stretching on STSM do not immediately reduce muscular strength and power compared to before stretching. Accordingly, it seems that in the warm-up phase of sport training, performing any of these stretching protocols is applicable.
- Triceps Surae muscle, Static stretch, Strength, Power
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References
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