Acute Effect of Three Different Stretching protocols on Wingate Test

The impact of stretching exercises on physical fitness has been highly discussed, and the main goals are to improve performance, reduce risk of injury or even to reduce soreness after exercise. However, few researches have addressed effects of stretching used during warm-up on power output during anaerobic exercise. PURPOSE: To examine the acute responses of three different stretching protocols on a maximal anaerobic Wingate test (WT). METHODS: Fifteen active male volunteers (25±3.3yrs; 178.5±8cm; 78.3±7,9kg; 15.4±3.5% body fat) participated in the study. The experimental protocol consisted in four WT on a Monark 824-E performed after: (1) a non-stretching (NS); (2) a static stretching protocol- 3 sets of 30s -(SS); (3) a dynamic stretching protocol, applied 3 sets of 5 slow repetitions and subsequent 10 repetitions as fast as possible (DS) and (4) a proprioceptive neuromuscular facilitation (PNF) protocol (3 performs), achieving the maximum range of motion, when the volunteer was asked to make the maximum opposite force during eight seconds and relaxing. Three stretching exercises were conducted, one for each muscle involved in the exercise (hamstrings, quadriceps and calves). The order of tests was randomized and they were recorded into a video camera (CANON power shot A410, Japan) at 10 frames/s. The peak power (PP), mean power (MP) and anaerobic fatigue index (AFI) were determined frame by frame, and the results of the tests were compared through repeated measures ANOVA (α=0.05). RESULTS: Significant differences were obtained among stretching conditioning for PP- DS 10.2±1.3 versus SS 9.2±1.2 W/Kg (p=0.008); DS versus PNF 9±1.2 (p=0.0006)-, but when comparing NS versus any stretching conditioning no difference was obtained (p>0.05). Concerning MP, significant difference occurs only between DS 7.7±0.9 and PNF 7.3±0.9 (p=0.035). The AFI did not demonstrate significant difference among all conditions (p=0.11). CONCLUSION: When comparing the NS with any stretching protocol no difference was obtained, suggesting that stretching exercises do not affect the WT results. However, when comparing DS with others stretching conditioning, improves on PP and MP was observe. Therefore, the DS seems to be a better strategy for use stretching exercises during warm up before de WT.