The effect of dynamic stretching exercises on speed before and after warm-up in football players

Objective: It is known that if dynamic stretching exercises are included in the warm-up before training or competition, the risk of injury is reduced and match performance is improved. To the best of our knowledge, there are no studies investigating the effect of dynamic stretching-before warm-up on the sprint performance in the literature. The aim of this study was to investigate the acute effect of dynamic stretching exercises before and after a warm-up on the 20m speed performance in football players between the ages of 16-19. Materials and Method: Forty-four football players (average 16.59±1.06 yo) who played in the infrastructure of amateur football clubs in Aydın province participated in this study. On the first day of the study, anthropometric measurements and 20m shuttle run test were performed. On the second day, players were randomly divided into two groups. In the first group (OG), dynamic stretching was performed before warm-up and then the players 20m sprint performances were tested. In the second group (SG), dynamic stretching was performed after the warm-up and then the players 20m sprint performances were tested. On the third day of the study, the same protocol was applied on the same players by changing groups of the players. Results: The average speed in the 20 m sprint test of the OG group was found to be 2.96±0,13 sec. In the same test, the average speed of the SG group was found 3.01±0,12 sec. The difference in the 20 m speed test values between groups was found significant (p<0.05). In this study, a statistically significant difference in 20 m speed values were not observed (P >0.05) in terms of the players' positions in the field. On the contrary, there was a significant difference between the players' positions in the 20 m shuttle run test values (p <0.05). Conclusion: When the 20 m sprint performance of the OG and SG groups were compared, the improvement in the 20 m sprint performance of OG group was found to be statistically significant. Keywords: Speed, dynamic stretching, shuttle running