Physiological principles of warm-up and muscle stretching on sports activities

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to analyze the importance of warming-up and muscle stretching on sports practice, highlighting its main physiological effects and benefits, since the present issue has caused much doubt to professional or amateur athletes as well as to professionals of the health field on designing and prescribing warming-up and muscle stretching, respectively. For this purpose, 52 texts, including articles from PubMed database and books published from 1978 to 2008, were used. From de total, 18 (34.62%) were written in Portuguese and 34 (65.38%) in English. Results showed that warming-up has the main objective to prevent injuries due to its multitude of physiological effects. The performance of stretching in the end of the sportive gesture has the purpose to prevent muscular shortening, or if carried out daily and for a long period, to provide increase in the number of sarcomeres and consequently to provide flexibility gain.