What's New in Science?
4
massage & fitness magazine
While athletes who participated in a recent study think they would perform better after stretching, researchers found that there were hardly any difference in performance whether the athletes performed static, dynamic, or no stretching at all. Twenty men performed one of the following routines each day after a light warm-up:
1. 5 seconds of static stretching
2. 3 sets of 10-second static stretching
3. 5 reps/muscle group of dynamic stretching
4. No stretching after warm-up
Each stretching was done on seven lower-body muscle groups and two upper-body ones. Afterwards, the athletes performed a battery of high-intensity exercises to gauge their performance, including squat jumps, butt kicks, T-agility test, and a 20-meter sprint run.
Despite the no-difference outcomes, stretching routines may make some athletes “feel more confident of high performance in the ensuing sports-related tests; i.e. there was a psychological effect.”
Neither Static Nor Dynamic Stretching Affects Athletic Performance
The Worse Your Finances, the Worse Your Low Back Pain, Among Elderly
Limitations of the study include:
1. Preclusion that the factors have a directional relationship with low back pain.
2. The study did not differentiate between short- and long-term disability associated with low back pain.
3. Subjects may not recall accurately about their back pain and disability history (memory bias).
4. Sampling bias: Researchers stated that those elders who had the highest burden of low back pain were excluded from the study (e.g. bed confinement).
A Brazilian study of 378 older adults who are living in a community home finds nearly 10 percent of them who have disabling chronic low back pain tend to be women who
are under financial strain. Other factors that
accompany such problem include low physical
activity, depression, high rate of abdominal
obesity, fatigue, lack of sleep, and depression.
However, the researchers find that these
accompanying factors were independently
associated with disabling low back pain. Given
that all of these factors all contribute various
degrees to this problem, those who are poor
tend to lack the resources and drive to seek
help than those who have more stable finances.