Os efeitos agudos do alongamento na performance da corrida: uma revisão crítica da literatura

Abstract

In the last decade, the number of runners has increased significantly in Brazil and abroad. Currently, street races are very popular in various regions of the planet. The International Associations of Athletics Federation (IAAF) defines street racing as races that occurs in open and natural environments (streets, avenues, roads) with official distances from 5 km to 100 km. These races are practiced mostly by recreative athletes seeking to improve their quality of life through sports. The race is one of the modalities that constitute the athletics which is often considered the "sport base" including natural and fundamental activities to man as walking, jogging, skipping and throwing. In addition, it is known that the development of these skills are necessary for the practice of several other sports. Every practitioner of physical activity, being elite or not, have a warm-up program that includes several tasks with or without a specific goal to be executed before physical practice. One of the exercises that are commonly part of the program is stretching. This concept was repeated constantly during the preparation for physical activity because there was many people that believed that the stretching was capable of decreasing the injuries occurrence. However, recent reviews have suggested that stretching immediately before exercise performed is not able to prevent tissue damage. Then, the new question to be made is if the stretching done before physical activity has a detrimental effect in some parameter of the performance of the race. Therefore, the aim of this study is to critically review the literature on the acute effects of stretching on performance parameters of the race. For this study were researched between April and August 2010, journals and articles indexed in the area of health in computerized databases: MEDLINE via PubMed, PEDro, Lilacs and Scielo via Bireme. Included in this literature review articles published between 2000 and 2010 in English. For a survey of scientific literature related to the subject of interest to the following terms were used alone and in combination: Running, Athletic Performance and Muscle Stretching and their variations in terminology (synonyms and terms used for indexing articles in the databases mentioned). It was established as inclusion criteria to identify the acute effect of any form of stretching on the factors that determine the performance of the race is held in isolation during practice or other physical activities. We excluded studies that evaluated only the chronic effect of this practice or who identified the influence of stretching in sports activities involving the achievement of other modalities other than race, such as jumps, for example. Although there are many variables to determine the performance of the race, the measure of running speed is the main factor of interest among researchers. According to the results of most studies included, the static stretching previously applied can reduce the performance of trained individuals (footballers, rugby, hockey and athletics professionals) and individuals who perform physical activity irregularly (amateur and recreational). This reduction in performance was observed, mainly by reducing the speed and / or increasing the time required for running tests. However, the inclusion of stretching called "dynamic" seems to be favorable to outcome variables determined by studies.