What is your pre-game team warmup?

[Kelly Clinevell]

First time posting. Does anyone do any foam rolling? In playing tournament ball I've found it to be especially helpful and even more so with pitchers and catchers.

 

[jimginas]

interesting post! I've never heard of "Foam Rolling" before, so the research and future blogs will help to understand whether this is a fad or something that will catch on to the extend that the theory (whether with foam folls or softballs) is well known in all sports warmups.
What I've read so far this morning is consistent with warming up the muscles, but it will be good to read what effect it has on the nervous system BEFORE an event. (Help reactions or slow them down??)

 

[Kelly Clinevell]

The reaction time aspect of foam rolling is frankly something that I hadn't considered. I'd like to see studies addressing this. Everyone has heard of the studies demonstrating that static stretching decreases power output - 10% is quoted sometimes - but some have questioned the methods used in the study. Apparently most studies that supported this position had their subjects perform the measured action immediately after stretching and the thought is that maybe the power output would be different if the action was taken several minutes after stretching. On the other hand this decreased power output is used in some instances when the intention is to "power off" certain muscle groups that when over active inhibit the desired motion - e.g. static stretching the hip flexors prior to a vertical jump test.
I've never liked predominantly static stretching because it does little to increase body temperature or activate the body in general and is not very effective at influencing muscular knots/adhesions. If you do have muscular adhesions/knots static stretching typically stretches the fibers surrounding the adhesions and does not effect the adhesion itself. Foam rolling is basically self massage that does a pretty good job of loosening up muscular adhesions and/or stiff muscles. Following this with some joint mobility and then dynamic stretching/movements seems to be pretty effective. I don't discourage kids who feel that they have specific problem areas that only seem to respond to static stretching to not static stretch. Sometimes it's more important if a kid thinks something helps than if it actually does.

 

[FJRGerry]

Funny post by Amy!

The 12U team my daughter just finished with and I helped coach was doing nothing more than static stretching (Static BSing was more like it) until I kept pestering the head coach to incorporate dynamic warm-ups. We finally started incorporating them late in the spring and you'd think I was introducing torture as warm-ups! This was a 1st year B team and most girls were interested in socializing instead of learning and improving themselves and as a team. I always watched other teams warm-up and noticed the better teams always had a focused, coordinated warm-up.

The girls would start with a light jog then (up & back about 60 feet):
High knee quick sprint
Butt kicks
Frankensteins (stepping while kicking up the opposing leg and touching opposite toe)
Lunge & pivot
Cariocci's (how many spellings are there of this word?)
Backwards jog while getting heels up above knee height
Side shuffle while staying low

For upper body (15-20 each):
Jumping Jacks (20)
Pivots side to side
Arm circles front & back
Swinging arms back & forth

If the girls didn't whine too much the whole process took less then 10 minutes. By the end of the season they actually started looking like a more focused group of girls.

After these the girls would have a catch with the instruction to take 3 big steps back every 10 throws each (starting about 20 feet apart).