Husker Warm-up a 'Rite of Passage'

Mavric

Mavric

Yoda
Staff member
During their first spring practice, the Huskers couldn’t complete a mistake-free warmup. Some bumped into each other or turned the wrong way. Some didn’t keep up. Some had body language Frost didn’t appreciate.

Every time, the process started over.

“We did it, like, five times, then he called us up,” senior offensive lineman Jerald Foster said. “He was not happy about that, sent us back. Then we messed up two more times, and he called us up and he really got mad. We did it the  right (way) that eighth time doing it. That was one of the hardest days ever.”

The dynamic warmup — or “stretch” as Frost and his staff call it — is a far cry from the static, stationary stretches employed under former coach Mike Riley. It begins with a slower portion, in which players go 10 yards by skipping, dipping, doing high knees and moving laterally. The length then extends to 20 yards with a similar combination of movements and sprints, all in a flat figure-eight pattern. During the portion of practice open to media  Wednesday, the warmup ended with players racing to midfield and doing coordinated jumping jacks.
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OWH

 
During my time coaching youth baseball, I have tried to constantly tell the kids the importance of doing things “the right way”. Good to see Frost and his staff emphasize that with simple things like a pre-practice warm-up. 

 
My hs wrestling coach (I didn't wrestle but he ran summer workouts) always told us that static stretching was for cool down. Doing it before a workout like football, basketball, track, etc. would potentially lead to injury as well, just like we saw last year

 
Wasn't static stretching before a workout abandoned by most severla years ago? I remember a ton of research coming our 4 or 5 years ago about it's lack of benefits and possibility of leading to injury. Guess it makes since MR still had the team doing it.  :facepalm:

 
Swiv3D said:
My hs wrestling coach (I didn't wrestle but he ran summer workouts) always told us that static stretching was for cool down. Doing it before a workout like football, basketball, track, etc. would potentially lead to injury as well, just like we saw last year
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You know, I've never really considered this before.  That stretching while moving would be a better way to warm up than static stretching.  Might want to try incorporating that into my workouts.

 
Swiv3D said:
My hs wrestling coach (I didn't wrestle but he ran summer workouts) always told us that static stretching was for cool down. Doing it before a workout like football, basketball, track, etc. would potentially lead to injury as well, just like we saw last year
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Ours did not make us static stretch for fear of injury.   We did the same thing like the team now, probably much less intense but same concept.  This was in 2001-04.  The information had been around awhile, it's just their own ideas and knowledge can beat science. 

 
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WyoHusker56 said:
Wasn't static stretching before a workout abandoned by most severla years ago? I remember a ton of research coming our 4 or 5 years ago about it's lack of benefits and possibility of leading to injury. Guess it makes since MR still had the team doing it.  :facepalm:
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I'd have to imagine Frost's way of doing it is still pretty unique.

Football coaches in general care less about fancy new research than they care about the way they were taught.  Stubborn breed.

 
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WyoHusker56 said:
Wasn't static stretching before a workout abandoned by most severla years ago? I remember a ton of research coming our 4 or 5 years ago about it's lack of benefits and possibility of leading to injury. Guess it makes since MR still had the team doing it.  :facepalm:
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I first read about online it during the Callahan years. Dynamic stretching was the new way to go according to the sports science world. I remember watching warmups during the 2007 season, and thinking how goofy some of the opposing teams looked as they skipped across the field while our guys sat down and did their static stretches, but it turns out the skips and jumps and grapevines and all that are the best way to go. That was a decade ago, and a lot of teams and coaches still haven't caught on.

 
Reminds me a bit of workout programs like Insanity Max:30. There's no static stretching at all - the first 4-5 minutes of the workouts are basically exercise routines like squat kicks, crossjacks, etc.

 
This is interesting (at least to me):
Exercising my Google-Fu on scholarly articles about "dynamic stretching" and reduced injury risk turned up the following list of articles:
https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=dynamic+stretching+reduced+injury+risk+site:.edu&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

Some of this research goes back to 2004 and 2005. Like any research, sometimes it is contradictory and sometimes it finds NO improvement (in things like soreness recovery, for example). 

The approach that SF is using seems to combine the concepts of stretching and warm-ups (which are considered as separate factors in this article: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.525.2286&rep=rep1&type=pdf )

Plyometrics (mentioned in the OWH article cited above) is a somewhat different subject, but its goal is increasing power (speed-strength). The Oregon strengths coach who influenced SF during his tenure there, Jim Radcliffe, explains how it improves performance in this video:





 
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