KIN122 Chapter6

Lecture Notes

A very different type of stretching from static stretching that's not often recommended due to the increased chance of injury, especially for people who are less physically active, is called ballistic or dynamic stretching, and here you're using momentum to move the joint past its normal range of motion. For example, leg swings, or as you see in the picture, you see this young woman doing high leg kicks. Again, she's moving her leg through its normal and past its normal range of motion by using momentum. Activities or ballistic stretching is often good for warming up the body for athletic movements, but you have to remember that if that stretch is too forceful or too rapid, this type of stretching could certainly activate the stretch receptors, or the muscle spindles, inside the muscle, and then that would really oppose the goal of the activity. So instead of lengthening of the muscle you would have contraction of the muscle.