A Guide To Stretching For Children To Prevent Osgood Schlatters Disease

Children have greater elasticity of muscles, ligaments

, tendons, and skin, and their tissues have a higher water content than adults. This is the main reason why children are more flexible than adults.

By and large stretches should be used as part of a well balanced training programme. Help your child by listening to his or her sports coach. They ought to have specific knowledge of your child's sport and should be aware of the physical demands and skills required. Therefore they should know which areas and muscles need to be flexible and which areas need more strength.

There are two key reasons for stretching.

1.To maintain the tissue and prepare it for competition

2.To increase flexibility of the child's tissues and range of motion of their joints.

These are significantly different tasks and so require different types of stretching. Here comes a crucial point to any parent. The two types of stretches should never be used together in an athletic situation at the same time

There are different stretches for each task and they should not be substituted for each other.

Each stretching type has a specific goal and method that is unique. The body responds better to stretching when it is warmer than normal. This can be achieved by raising the body temperature with a light jog beforehand and wearing warm clothing. Needless to say, this is not necessary if your stretching is part of a cool down programme, but it is necessary as part of a warm-up routine. Raising the childs body temperature and keeping warm are important.

Maintenance and Preparation for Sport(warm-ups)

These stretches should be done normally as part of a warm-up routine. They prepare the muscles and joints for the strong movements that the body will perform in the sport ahead. They aim to move the body through its normal range, not extend or increase it.

Static stretches applies gentle pressure using gravity or other body part to achieve a passive stretch. These are usually the best stretches for pure joint tightness and restrictions.

Dynamic stretches use the opposite muscle group to provide the stretching and appears to be the BEST stretch for pre-match warm-up as it mimics the action of the muscle in real life.

Ballistic stretches are strictly speaking not really a stretch but more a rehearsal of movement, bouncing the joint at the end of its limit. This type of stretch is the for rehearsal just before explosive events eg jumping, sprinting and throwing.

They should be used just prior to start of the sport. You will often see sprinters at an Athletics meeting, jumping on the spot just seconds before they go onto their starting block.

Stretches to Increase Flexibility and Range.

These are very strong stretches and are designed to increase the range that the tissues and joints can move through.

Scientific evidence indicates that straight after this type of stretch there may be some temporary weakening, therefore it is recommended as a cool down stretch only rather than a warm up.

Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation or PNF stretches, use a combination of tightening the muscle first then using opposite muscle or passive pressure to achieve the stretch .

For example, lying on back with leg lifted up, push down on object or another person for 10 seconds then relax, and either using quads or passive force pull leg up higher.

Using your own muscle produces a better stretch then passive but is sometimes more difficult to do.

So helping your child prevent tissue injury is not that difficult. There is a learning curve involved, and there are some excellent books around. Osgood Schlatters and Severs Disease can be very painful and debilitating and affects a huge number of children. I am sure you will agree that the best course of action is to make sure that your sporty child learns these important stretches and integrates them into the warm up and cool down programme.

by: Suzy Powell

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