Acute effects of neural gliding and dynamic stretching on hamstring flexibility and athletic performance in college basketball players

BACKGROUND: The warmup is a universally accepted part of every athlete's training regimen, but the use of neural mobilization as part of the warmup is not widely used or studied. The purpose of this study was to compare the acute effects of neural gliding and dynamic stretching exercises on hamstring flexibility and athletic performance in collegiate basketball players.METHODS: Seventeen college basketball players volunteered for the study. Pre-and postintervention testing included bilateral hamstring flexibility using the active straight leg test, 10 and 40-yard sprint, countermovement vertical jump, and 20-yard shuttle run.RESULTS: The results did not show a significant time by group interactions for all six measurements and all main effects were insignificant except for the 40-yard sprint (P=0.005). Post-hoc paired t-tests with Bonferroni correction (P≤0.025) did not show as significant difference in 40-yard sprint performance in both the dynamic stretching (P=0.039) or the neural gliding group (P=0.062).CONCLUSIONS: The results demonstrate that both neural gliding and dynamic stretching exercises did not have a significant effect on hamstring flexibility or athletic performance tests. Neural gliding can be used as part of the pre-participation warm-up without a negative effect on athletic performance, but more research is needed to truly determine if neural gliding should be part of a warm-up.