Sport specific stretches in my warm up;
Stretches to all the leg muscles, to loosen them so that they are ready and able to make needed movements in football without injury.
A popular football warm up is passing the ball with another player. This results in achieving the same benefits already mentioned that a normal warm up achieves but it also gets you in the right mental phase for playing football. It will help to improve your co-ordination and speed up your reaction time related to football. I would do the normal warm up first to ensure that you are properly warmed up but then this football warm afterwards to prep you for your next football activities.
When warming up a lot of athletes tend to not take in seriously and not put 100% into warming up correctly. Professional athletes will warm up probably because they understand the importance of it. They understand that warming up probably can lead to bad performance, quick fatigue of the body and mind, and also more probability of injury.
The Cool Down, what does it involve and why?
The cool down is equally as important as the warm up, even though some athletes tend to forget about it.
A cool down should involve some jogging and other gentle exercise for the body to prepare for your body to stop working so hard so that it is not a shock to the body.
Ideally you should cool down for the same about of time that you warmed up (20-30 minutes) because you body takes just as long to prepare safely, for stopping as it does to prepare safely for working harder.
A cool down;
*prevents soreness by keeping the circulation up instead of a dead stop
*this is so that more oxygen reaches muscles to clear lactic acid away which will help again fatigue and crap
*it loosens tight muscles so they won’t get stiff later
*and there is also evidence that it helps you perform better next time
A cool down can also help towards a faster recovery time because you are helping it adjust. It will minimise delayed onset of muscle soreness (DOMS), which occurs 24-48 hours following exercise.
Safety
The safety of a training session is very important because even correct warm ups and cool downs can’t ensure all injury prevention.
You should make sure that you are wearing the correct equipment and training in the right facility for your sport. For football, a short grass pitch, 3G, or Astroturf are the right sports grounds needed for a safe training session. You should ensure that you have the right football boots/trainers on for each of these different grounds because the wrong footwear could cause injury or the legs, ankles, knees and joints, and you could fall over.
Also the right clothing is vital because if your body gets too cold then this will cause bad performance, muscle fatigue, cramps and even hyperthermia.
Before during and after sport you should drinking a hydrating liquid, little and often. This is to keep you hydrated, keep energy levels up, prevent fatigue and muscle cramps.
You should make sure that you don’t over warm up/ cool down because this will not be beneficial. When stretching in a warm up you will be able to just you stretching ability, were as in a cool down this is slightly harder. This is because you have just done exercise your brain is busy and concentrating on other things other than the judgement of your stretching ability. You should make sure that you do not over stretch whilst doing this by knowing your generally stretching ability at that time, as you could injury your self or cause unnecessary pain afterwards.
