Stretching, (Dynamic?) and Warmup

[Slidewinder]

"There is insufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue routine warm-up prior to physical activity to prevent injury among sports participants." (Title: Does warm-up prevent injury in sport? The evidence from randomised control trials. - Journal of Science and Medicine in Sports, June 2006)

I looked it up. The rest of the sentence reads
Conclusions: There is insufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue routine warm-up prior to physical activity to prevent injury among sports participants. However, the weight of evidence is in favour of a decreased risk of injury.

DUDE how could you post that in good conscience ?

The statement, "The weight of evidence is in favour of decreased risk of injury.", is a statement of the findings of the study. It is not the conclusion. In good conscience I posted the conclusion: "There is insufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue routine warm-up prior to physical activity to prevent injury among sports participants."

In your April 14 post on this thread you include this quote, "Stretching before exercising does not reduce injury risk and does reduce performance." and you included a link to studies that show this.

All this must surprise you, as it did me. It goes against what we have been taught. In this thread I offer a possible Darwinian explanation: That since the ability to go from rest to full exertion offers a survival advantage to mammals then natural selection would favour that trait and over aeons it would become ubiquitous. This has been greeted here with anger, ridicule, and insults, but no one has refuted the argument. I asked gvormac to present a refutation of my evolutionary explanation for these research results. He didn't. I ask the same of you. Of course, if you think my explanation has merit, then it would be a simple courtesy for you to acknowledge that.

[Sakly]

In this thread I offer a possible Darwinian explanation: That since the ability to go from rest to full exertion offers a survival advantage to mammals then natural selection would favour that trait and over aeons it would become ubiquitous.

Let's have a look at the typical human mammals: they sit on a couch or chair all day long, use elevators, drive by car for shortest distances, do no physical exercises at all and population is 60-70% overweight (of not even a bigger percentage). If Darwinian explanation would hold true in these days, all these humans must die, as to be overweight and develop many metabolic illnesses is clearly not giving any positive impact for natural selection. All these mammals are not able to run even a slightly faster 100m.
But all these mammals get old the same way as the healthy individuals (even if they need much medications or other medical help).
Not sure, if Darwin plays a huge role for this question.

[RolandG]

This has been greeted here with anger, ridicule, and insults, but no one has refuted the argument. I asked gvormac to present a refutation of my evolutionary explanation for these research results. He didn't. I ask the same of you. Of course, if you think my explanation has merit, then it would be a simple courtesy for you to acknowledge that.

The only anger, ridicule and insults in this thread were from you.

The burden of proof is solely on you. It is nobody’s responsibility to refute your thoughts, it is your responsibility to offer evidence. What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence.

[Tsnor]

"There is insufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue routine warm-up prior to physical activity to prevent injury among sports participants." (Title: Does warm-up prevent injury in sport? The evidence from randomised control trials. - Journal of Science and Medicine in Sports, June 2006)

I looked it up.

The statement, "The weight of evidence is in favour of decreased risk of injury.", is a statement of the findings of the study. It is not the conclusion."

No, the statement is literally in the conclusions section of the paper. The "conclusions:" tag IS FROM THE PAPER.
Conclusions: There is insufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue routine warm-up prior to physical activity to prevent injury among sports participants. However, the weight of evidence is in favour of a decreased risk of injury.

...In your April 14 post on this thread you include this quote, "Stretching before exercising does not reduce injury risk and does reduce performance." and you included a link to studies that show this....

Yes, but we are talking warmup, not stretching. Based on research I don't stretch before working out. I do warm up. Every time. Because the research supporting this is really strong.

You said don't warm up, it's fine. No, it's not fine. Someone following your advice could get hurt. The only darwin reference I see here is the meme where people who do stupid things don't reproduce.

[Tsnor]

... I asked gvormac to present a refutation of my evolutionary explanation for these research results. He didn't.

You haven't posted any research results showing lack of value from warmups in either humans or animals.

...I ask the same of you. Of course, if you think my explanation has merit, then it would be a simple courtesy for you to acknowledge that.

Easy to refute. Once you read the refutation "it would be a simple courtesy for you to acknowledge that."

Horse racing is a money sport. These animals are valuable and studied. Nobody would race a horse without a warmup. So it was fairly easy to find equine studies that refuted your claim that animals, through some Darwinian mechanism, don't benefit from warmup. e.g. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0621003440 You can find similar in dog studies like this one. https://brill.com/view/journals/cep/17/ ... p251_6.xml Or you can just say people are animals and use people studies, like this one from us military "the amount of time a subject was "grounded," duty not involving flying, because of a musculoskeletal injury decreased significantly from 146 days per month to 73 days per month (p = 0.02). A quick, generic warm-up of evidence-based exercises may decrease the number of limited duty days in a flying population." https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27168558/

Your Darwin argument can be reversed. You could just as easily make an argument that the advantages of warmup are so clear that Darwinian behavior led to predatory doing sneak attacks so that prey did not have time to warm up.

The science behind warmups is clear and clean. Muscles work differently when they are warm. That can be directly measured, and has been shown to be beneficial for both performance and injury reduction.

This forum is full of excellent trusted information. Please keep it that way. You know warmups are best practice. You've just spent days trying to find a study that shows the opposite and failed. Don't get the people who trust you hurt.

[Slidewinder]

I looked it up.

The statement, "The weight of evidence is in favour of decreased risk of injury.", is a statement of the findings of the study. It is not the conclusion."

No, the statement is literally in the conclusions section of the paper. The "conclusions:" tag IS FROM THE PAPER.
Conclusions: There is insufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue routine warm-up prior to physical activity to prevent injury among sports participants. However, the weight of evidence is in favour of a decreased risk of injury.
.

Yes, the authors of the paper state that the weight of evidence is in favour of decreased risk of injury - but have determined that the "weight" of that evidence is so insignificant that they conclude "there is insufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue warm-up prior to physical activity to prevent injury among sports participants".

The authors of the paper are careless about sentence structure. For clarity, the sentence should read, "Although the weight of evidence is in favour of decreased risk of injury, there is insufficient evidence to endorse or discontinue routine warm-up prior to physical activity to prevent injury among sport participants." This would have made it less likely for biased readers to misinterpret the study (as you have done) and declare triumphantly that the study proves that warm-ups are beneficial.

[iain]

I thought it was too obvious and apologies for anyone who thinks I am patronising when I point out that evolution by natural selection relies upon there being the variation available to be selected. As stated you could equally argue that if instant teleporation had any advantage we would all be able to instantly teleport! As for animal examples, I would imagine that lions don't actually accelerate at 100% of their potential to protect them from injury when accelerating on cold muscles. THeir prey may well not have this as the risk of injury may be outweighed by the advantage of not being eaten given that a one on one run from a predator will be rare for them while done several times every day by the predator.

[Slidewinder]

...evolution by natural selection relies upon there being the variation available to be selected.

Of course. The ability to go from rest to full exertion without a warm-up would not have suddenly appeared. It would have evolved incrementally - both for predator and prey.

In a private message, one forum member observed that the speed difference between a sabre tooth tiger and early humans would have been so great that this trait would have offered no survival advantage - seemingly a good point. But if you were in a group of cave-men fleeing from a predator, you didn't have to be faster than the predator, you just had to be faster than the guy beside you. We see this in caribou. Wolves take the slowest - the weak, the sick - thereby keeping the caribou herd strong.

In any case, the evolutionary development of this trait probably occurred far far earlier in time. It would be lodged deep in the ancient DNA we share with our four footed furry ancestors, predating the existence of lions, antelopes, and humans.

[Dutch]

I have solved this dilemma, I am going to buy a lion costume and get on my rower and I will have a suit, mind connection and then just like the lions, not have to warm up. I am also going to have a wall mural painted of a savannah to make my suit mind connection fool proof, so i will spring from the off like mother nature intended.

[Dangerscouse]

suit mind connection fool proof, so i will spring from the off like mother nature intended.

Hahahahaha, love it!! Suit mind connection!!!

[gvcormac]

suit mind connection fool proof, so i will spring from the off like mother nature intended.

Hahahahaha, love it!! Suit mind connection!!!

+1

I've derived a lot of entertainment from this thread. Mind you, I also watch flat-earther and sovereign citizen videos. It is useless but harmless.

[Willy.VdW]

I have solved this dilemma, I am going to buy a lion costume and get on my rower and I will have a suit, mind connection and then just like the lions, not have to warm up.

Mind you, lions attract flies, so you will have to wiggle your tale.
This may be a challenge while rowing.

[Mlevison]

Lions are mammals and so are we. If the argument is made that, 'Yeah but lions have evolved to spring explosively from rest to the chase', I would reply that surely evolution has also thus equipped humans. In our forest dwelling pre-history past humans also needed that capability to escape from sudden danger. That capability is with us still.

Lions evolved under very different pressures than humans and are less well studied. Lions also don't spend time working at a desk, etc.

[iain]

Apologies for "poking the bear", but thinking about the lion conundrum had a thought of a possible reason for a difference:

IIRC there is a metabolic "shortcut" in our muscles that allows the muscle to gear up to rapid ATP production without doing useful work. Essentially the ATP is allowed to degenerate via an enzyme. This means that it is estimated that a top sprinter on the blocks is allowing 99% of the ATP being produced to degrade. This degradation is hugely exothermic as it is releasing the stored energy, so will warm up the muscles rapidly. This only operates (at a significant rate) when primed for the requirements of a huge effort. This is what is happening when HR is pounding on the start of a race. I have seen HR = 65% of maximum before pulling the first stroke.

I imagine that a lion getting ready to pounce is flooded with adrenalin and utilising this to the full. Indeed lions will have a selective pressure to have developed this further than most. However, through evolution we did not have the same selective pressure. It is believed that one of the biggest advantages that our ancestors had was the ability to lose heat more effectively than others (loss of body hair and relatively slender shape) and so have an advantage over long distances. I the animal world we have a relatively low power for our size. Burning energy at rest is hugely wasteful and so would only convey an evolutionary advantage if it had a large benefit to more than outweigh these costs. As such I would expect that this pathway is relatively underdeveloped in humans. As such, before a big race or with positive visualisation followed by a delay a warm up might be less effective than on a more normal high intensity effort. But 65% of maximum is way below the recommended HRs for a warm up, so I believe some warm up would still be beneficial.

[Slidewinder]

Apologies for "poking the bear", but thinking about the lion conundrum had a thought of a possible reason for a difference:

I used the lion example because humour adds interest to an argument and because that is how early fitness guru Joe Weider explained his reason for not warming up. Many here,pretending to miss the broader point, have seized upon the lion/human comparison, thinking that the image is a good target for ridicule. Joe Weider's actual argument is that it would have been a survival advantage for all mammals to evolve the ability to go from rest to full exertion without warming up, and since humans are mammals, we share this mammalian trait. Evidence of this evolutionary reality is in the findings of the paper I quoted above (May 11, 2024), which you have conveniently ignored.