Tennis Safety Tips - How to Prevent and Manage Tennis Injuries

Short Description
The Massachusetts General Hospital Sports Medicine Service and Department of Physical Therapy has teamed up with the Boston Lobsters to help tennis enthusiasts of all ages develop methods and strategies for preventing tennis injuries and illness, and to help appropriately manage them if they occur. Each program will feature a short article contributed from MGH physicians, physical therapists, and athletic trainers that will prove informative for Boston Lobster Fans.

Website: www.massgeneral.org | Filesize: 28kb
No of Page(s): 4

Content
Warm-Up and Stretching: An Update
Warm-up and stretching exercises have long been considered to be an integral part of any exercise program or sport. While many consider stretching and warm-up to be the same thing they are not.
Warm-up exercises are movements and activities that mimic the movements that occur during any particular sport. These warm-up exercises, which gradually increase in intensity, are aimed at elevating muscle temperature prior to actual sport participation. They are also meant to improve flexibility, strength, endurance, and agility and minimize the risk of injury. While stretching exercises can be a part of a warm-up routine, stretching exercises alone should not be considered the actual warm-up for a sport.
Stretching exercises, completed as a part of a pre-exercise warm-up routine, have long been thought to decrease the chance of incurring an injury such as a muscle strain or “pull.” Some recent studies and reviews in the health care literature however, suggest that for many sports, this may not be the case.1,2,3, Based on these reports, some researchers now even feel that stretching before exercise is probably unnecessary except for sports that require extreme flexibility such as dance, gymnastics and figure skating or sports that require a lot of starting, stopping and change of directions like tennis does4,5. These researchers feel that the time spent on stretching may be better spent on a more thorough warm-up. In contrast other studies2,6, including those specific to soccer- have demonstrated the positive benefits from stretching toward the prevention of muscle injuries.
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