Static versus dynamic stretching: Chronic and acute effects on Agility performance in male athletes

The purpose of this study was to examine the acute and chronic effects of static & dynamic stretching protocols on agility performance in amateur handball players. Twelve male amateur handball players (age: 19.66 +/- 4.02 years old, weight: 67.12 +/- 8.73 kg, height: 178.29 +/- 7.81 cm) participated in this study. The athletes were randomly allocated into two groups: static stretching or dynamic stretching. All of them underwent an initial evaluation and were submitted to the first intervention. They were evaluated once again and at the end of 12 training sessions. The results analyzed using ANOVA showed that there was a significant decrease in agility time after dynamic stretching against no stretching in the acute phase; but, there were no significant differences between dynamic stretching and no stretching in the chronic phase. In addition, there was no a significant difference between no stretching and static stretching in the acute phase; while, There was a significant decrease in agility time after no stretching against static stretching in the chronic phase. It was concluded that acute dynamic stretching as part of a warm-up may decrease agility time performance, whereas static stretching seems to increase agility time performance. Consequently, the acute and chronic static stretching should not be performed prior to an explosive athletic performance.