Short duration static stretching preceded by cycling warm-up reduces vertical jump performance in healthy males

Purpose: It has been proposed that warm-up activities including static stretching may have detrimental effects on power performance. While it is well established in the literature that more than 30 s of stretching before exercise induces deficit in force and power production, there are still controversial findings regarding 30 s or less when additional interventions, such as general warm-up, are allied to the stretching. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to evaluate the acute effect of passive static stretching preceded by dynamic warm-up on vertical jump performance. Methods: Twenty healthy men participated in this study, and attended to one familiarization session and two testing sessions. In the warm-up (WP) condition, participants performed a 5 min warm-up on a cycle ergometer followed by the counter movement jump (CMJ) test. In the warm-up plus static stretching (WP + SS) condition, besides the same previously described warm-up, participants performed 30 s static stretching bouts for calf, hamstrings, gluteus maximus and quadriceps muscles in a randomized order, followed by the CMJ test. Results: Data distribution was verified by the Shapiro–Wilk test and Paired T-Student test was used to compare jump height between the two conditions. A significant between-condition effect was observed for CMJ height (p < 0.05), such that jump height was significantly lower in WP + SS condition. Conclusion: The results of the present study demonstrate that a 5 min dynamic warm-up combined to a 30 s of passive static stretch in four muscle groups induce a reduction in lower limb power measured by CMJ height.