Should Athletes Warm Up
How beneficial is warming up for sports people
By Peter Garbutt

Working with sporting teams can be a challenging task. One of the challenges that are often faced is the team warm up. Working out a warm up that suits time restraints, space restraints, maintains athlete interest and actually prepares the athletes for the sport they are about to participate in is demanding enough in itself. If that is not enough, most team sports involve a bench of waiting players. The challenge then exists of what to do with the players that are on the bench. It has long been suspected that a player could return to pre-warm up levels after sitting on the bench and this can be a matter of concern for those caring for the team.

Outcomes from a study published in Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise tend to indicate that this might be an even bigger problem than expected, particularly for the low back region. The Canadian researchers took 9 volleyball players to test their hypothesis that the athletes’ backs would tighten up after sitting on the bench, having performed a warm up with the rest of the team. Lumbar spine range of motion was tested before and after a 30 minute warm up (longer than many teams get) and then after a further 30 minutes on the bench. It was found that there was an increase in spinal stiffness after a 30 minute period sitting on the bench. The stiffness was found only in extension and lateral flexion, not in forward flexion or axial rotation. Reasons for this may be that in volleyball, the most common bench sitting position is hunched forward, maintaining a sustained stretch into forward flexion (not that this is likely to be a good thing for the ligamentous support of the spine or the annular fibres of the disc). When sitting on the bench watching the game, a degree of rotation would be present which may maintain the rotational motion.

The troubling part of this finding however isn’t just that spinal stiffness increased over the 30 min bench sitting period, but that the pre-game warm up had neither a positive or negative effect on spinal stiffness as measured by the researchers. This means that the benched players might actually have less spinal motion when they enter the field of play than if they didn’t bother to warm up at all. The implications of this research are quite profound with respect to management of bench players. Not only are these athletes at risk of low back injury through this process, but also of decreased performance on the field or court.

The researchers mentioned the need for further study in this area. More study is required to determine the length of time spent sitting on the bench required to increase stiffness, as well as effects of alternative postures and activities on the bench which may decrease or eliminate this potentially damaging effect.

References:

• Green JP, Grenier SG, McGill SM. Low-back stiffness is altered with warm-up and bench rest: Implications for athletes. Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise 2002: 34(7);1076-1081.
• Walker I. Why ‘sitting on the bench’ is a bad idea. Peak Performance Dec. 2002: 174;10-11.