The Effectiveness of a Specialized Upper Body Stretching Protocol on NCAA Division I Athletes

Previous studies with college athletes determined that the shoulder girdle plays a vital role in a variety of athletic activities. The previous research showed that a decrease in shoulder range of motion (ROM) was associated with a higher risk injury. Decreased shoulder ROM was shown to be a primary reason that many athletes were unable to perform many overhead lifting variations within their strength and conditioning programs. The purpose of this research was to evaluate a group of athletes by means of a postural assessment using the overhead squat test. This study consisted of a pretest-post test control group design. The dependent variable that was observed was the goniometric measurement of the shoulder ROM in response to the independent variable, which was a specialized upper body stretching protocol. Current NCAA Division I male athletes from a university in the south, who competed in a variety of different intercollegiate sports, volunteered for this study (N = 27). For the purpose of the current study the athlete was asked to perform three trials of the overhead squat test. For each of the trials goniometric data were collected. After the data were collected the athletes were taught the joint-specific stretching protocol that was to be used as the intervention for this study. When the pretest and posttest data were observed, the intervention group had an average decrease of 14.7 degrees over the course of the study, while the control group only showed an average decrease of 1.6 degrees. A one-way ANOVA showed that the means of the two groups were not statistically different at the posttest but were significantly different at the pretest. To check the interaction between the grouping factor and the trial factor, a 2 x 2 ANOVA, at a p-value of 0.05, was used to determine the between measurement interactions. From the data that were collected it was determined that there was a statistically significant time factor as well as interaction effect when comparing the two conditions.