Dear Newletter reader

Welcome to our August newsletter

Rotherham United LFC School of Sports would like to welcome Amy Pollock to the school. I look forward to working with you.

All the staff at Rotherham United LFC School of Sport would like to congratulate RULFC’s new signing Paige Crossman, after returning from her first stint at the England Y19′s Training Camp. Paige competed for 70 mins in various positions across the midfield and forward line, and is now hoping to await a call up for a full England Cap in a competitive competition.

I would like to update you on a few projects currently on the go,

• Stokes Intl Youth/Community Project.. Still have not been granted permission to renovate the building into a community centre.  Though we now have the Council on our side & have been in regular contact with the SNT

New Sponsor for Rotherham United LFC School of Sports

1st-2-Find Investigations, specialists in Tracing & Tracking Missing Persons

www.1st-2-find.co.uk

As promised, I will be forwarding some useful tips and advice on health, performance & coaching tips. Each week I will follow up from the previous weeks’ advice.

This week, I’m focusing on warming up and will follow this up next time

Warming Up

Stretching is not warming up! It is, however, a very important part of warming up. Warming up is quite literally the process of “warming up” (i.e., raising your core body temperature). A proper warm-up should raise your body temperature by one or two degrees Celsius (1.4 to 2.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and is divided into three phases. I will concentrate on the first phase today:

General warm-up

The general warm-up is divided into two parts:

• Joint rotations
• Aerobic activity

These two activities should be performed in the order specified above.

Joint Rotations

The general warm-up should begin with joint-rotations, starting either from your toes and working your way up, or from your fingers and working your way down. This facilitates joint motion by lubricating the entire joint with synovial fluid. Such lubrication permits your joints to function more easily when called upon to participate in your athletic activity. You should perform slow circular movements, both clockwise and counter-clockwise, until the joint seems to move smoothly. You should rotate the following (in the order given, or in the reverse order):

• Fingers and knuckles
• Wrists
• Elbows
• Shoulders
• Neck
• Trunk/waist
• Hips
• Legs
• Knees
• Ankles
• Toes

Aerobic Activity

After you have performed the joint rotations, you should engage in at least five minutes of aerobic activity such as jogging, jumping rope, or any other activity that will cause a similar increase in your cardiovascular output (i.e., get your blood pumping). The purpose of this is to raise your core body temperature and get your blood flowing. Increased blood flow in the muscles improves muscle performance and flexibility and reduces the likelihood of injury. The stretching phase of your warmup should consist of two parts:

• Static stretching
• Dynamic stretching

It is important that static stretches be performed before any dynamic stretches in your warm-up. Dynamic stretching can often result in overstretching, which damages the muscles. Performing static stretches first will help reduce this risk of injury. Once the general warm-up has been completed, the muscles are warmer and more elastic. Immediately following your general warm-up, you should engage in some slow, relaxed, static stretching. You should start with your back, followed by your upper body and lower body, stretching your muscles in the following order

• Back
• Sides (external obliques)
• Neck
• Forearms and wrists
• Triceps
• Chest
• Buttocks
• Groin (adductors)
• Thighs (quadriceps and abductors)
• Calves
• Shins
• Hamstrings
• Instep

Some good static stretches for these various muscles may be found in most books about stretching. Unfortunately, not everyone has the time to stretch all these muscles before a workout. If you are one such person, you should at least take the time to stretch all the muscles that will be heavily used during your workout

Signing off until next time…

Caroline Stokes
Editor

RULFC SoS

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 26th, 2010 at 9:14 am and is filed under Latest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.