What are the best stretches to do before and after sprinting and football training?

Question

I play on the school football team. We go to tournments every couple of weeks. I play in defense and have found out that stamina and speed can be crucial. So a couple of nights a week I go for a sprint or jog along with controling the ball with both feet.

But I have trouble with warming down since I still get cramp after.
So does anyone know any stretches to do before and after going for a run and playing football?

Answer 1

you should probably stretch out your calves becuase that's the main muscle you use when running

what i do is sit on the ground and put my legs straight out in front of me and reach for my feet and i do it a couple of times because i usually need to stretch a lot b4 any type of running

i also do the stretch where you put your left leg straight out to the side while my right knee is bent bringing my right leg towards me (do for both sides)--it may not stretch out your calf but it also helps

my favorite stretch before i run stretches out the lower part of my calf--you get in the push-up position but bring your arms in closer so your butt sticks up in the air, you put your right ankle over your left or left ankle over your right and keep your toes from the foot underneath straight and try to put your heel to the ground

hope i could help

Answer 2

For sprinting: walk a bit, pick up the pace to a jog. Then job kicking your knees up higher and higher... you can also start to skip for distance ane height after walking and jogging. What you are doing is dynamically stretching and warming up your muscles so you don't cause a hard snap or damage. Football: You have to get your neck, arms, torso, shoulders involved too. Jogging, jumping, rolling, back stretch, trunk turns, shoulder rotations all help. You want to a lower based movement that gradually works up to the movement that mimics the sport. Hope this helps a bit.

Answer 3

In Winter you should sit in your car with the heater on before playing and then after, stretch yourself all the way to the local boozer for a few pints of strong lager that should do you right

Answer 4

You should warm up for at least 10 minutes before serious exercise. This should be a low impact where you move slowly to begin then speed up. Try walking on the spot without lifting the balls of your feet off the floor. after a count of 100 or so, include your arms. Reach to the front then bring them back. then bring your elbows up to shoulder height, palms down under your chin. Move your elbows to the back, squeezing your shoulder blades together. Bring them back under your chin. repeat 20 or so times. Shake out arms. Take hands above you head. pull down your hands to your chin. repeat. All the time be walking on the spot. Shake out. Stand with legs apart, hands by your sides. Reach above your head to the left corner while doing a right leg curl twice. then repeat on the other side. do this ten or twenty times.

You should now have warmed most of your major muscle groups and should now do a stretch. Do each stretch on both sides for a count of 8 or 10. Start at the top and work down. Waist and shoulder stretch. Reach to the ceiling, stretch on tippy-toes trying to touch ceiling. Tricep stretch, take one arm above your head, drop fingers to nape of neck, reach down your back. Bicep stretch. Put arm straight out in front of you, palm up. with other hand, push fingers of palm up hand to the floor. Chest stretch. Put one leg in front of the other clasp hand at front , push towards wall. take arms behind, push out chest, raise arms as high as poss. Leg stretches

Put legs as far apart as possible. turn to one side. drop the forward leg. Keeping you groin above your heel, push your groin as low to the floor as possible. Count to 10. Stay in this position and push the heel of the rear foot to the floor. Count to 10. Twist body so you are facing forward, toes facing forward count to 10. Twist straight leg so toes are facing ceiling. Bring toes up for a count of 10, then point toes for a count of 10. Change legs and repeat for other leg.

Roll up slowly keeping legs wide apart, grip your ankles, push you head between your knees.

Shake out, exercise vigorously. At the end of the exercise, run a little slower. repeat the stretches - but not until your heart rate has lowered a little.

Summary without the exercises:-

To prevent cramps, warm up. Do the stretches gradually when your heart rate has increased a bit. Do your vigorous exercise, then warm down as a precursor to removing lactic acid. Then stretch to remove rest of acid and final cool down.