Do you stretch before you juggle?
What are some stretches you do before/during a practice? Or do you not bother?
What about warming up? Do you work up to your harder tricks in practice by doing easier ones first, or do you just go for it?
I hurt my neck practicing recently so I thought I'd ask these questions.
Some people will tell you to stretch before practice and some people will tell you not to. There's no scientific evidence to suggest that stretching before practice can help to prevent injury, and it may actually make injury more likely, so I don't bother. If I do stretching for flexibility I do it at other times. Warming up is a good idea and I should probably do it more. Normally I'll start with a longish run of a medium number of objects and throw high and low. I'll often start with some balancing as well to find my center. Other than that I try not to have the same routine per session and try to mix it up as much as possible so that I'm not training on auto-pilot.
Little Paul - - Parent #
Stretching and warmup for injury prevention?
It's been a while since I last talked to physiomonkey/monkeyjuggler about this[1], but I doubt the situation has changed all that much in the last couple of years. I can't be bothered to go rummaging in medical journals to check though. As I understand it the situation is:
There is no evidence in the published medical literature that shows a positive effect on injury prevention from pre-exercise warmups or stretching.
However, there is some evidence that stretching is generally good for injury prevention, but it doesn't matter if you do it before or after exercise, or the next day. If you include stretching in your general fitness regime there are benefits.
Warmups are good for getting your mind into the right place to perform the exercise you're about to do, and for waking yourself up getting in the mood or whatever. Beyond that you're expending energy on your warmup which could be better spent on the exercise you're working on.
I would suggest that if you've hurt your neck while practising, you might want to work out what you did that caused the injury and spend time addressing that rather than warming up :) eg, how's your posture?
[1] I'm not a qualified medical professional, but he is and he's done far more reading on this particular issue than I ever will so I'm willing to trust his opinion. I hope I'm not misrepresenting it. I thought he was on The Edge, but I can't find him in the users list.
I used to stretch/warmup before running, or before a gym session. Since talking to physiomonkey about it I stopped bothering. I now do some generaly stretching a couple of times a week instead. My injury rate hasn't changed all that much. On a cold day at the gym, I'll do some cardio to get my heart rate up and kick my poor circulation into life, but that's more about being comfortable than it is about injury prevention :)
If the ambient temperature is cold it definitely helps to warm up, both for performance and for injury avoidance. Warming up will raise your muscle temperature which will increase the nerve conduction velocity which will let you move faster. It will also raise your skin temperature which will make your skin more flexible and less likely to be damaged by collision with a club or ring (probably doesn't matter with beanbags). Glenn Gould (pianist) was known to soak his hands in warm water before performing.
It also helps to warm up your props eg clubs and rings as they are less elastic when cold and hurt more if they hit you or you catch them badly.
I can definitely see that, and definitely appreciate you adding some scientific insight. I agree. Even the effect of the cold on your hands alone can be huge. If I'm outside in anywhere near sub-zero temperatures, my hands can hardly feel to catch at all.
Cedric Lackpot - - Parent #
I'm also not qualified ... to do bugger all really. Money back if not completely satisfied!
IIRC Al's original standpoint that warm ups *for injury prevention* was mostly unsubstantiated, but IIRC there has since been some evidence to support the idea, and perhaps his position has warmed a little. What does seem to be true (and I think LP has mostly already covered this) is that warming up (aka exercise) in general will make you fitter and will therefore protect you somewhat against injury; it just won't make a lot of difference in the specific instance, and indeed there is a little evidence to suggest that it may even make you slightly more vulnerable.
Please notice that I've qualified my statements about evidence with deliberately vague modifiers - scientifically, it's a debate that has yet to be concluded. Go ahead and cherry pick the evidence if you wish; reality will not follow suit.
TL;DR Warm up, go on, it's good for you! Just don't go thinking it'll make any immediate difference to your likelihood of injury, that's not really where the benefits lie.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
I do not do designated stretches before juggling.
As a warm-up, I go through patterns with more movement than my usual ones. First, I juggle with my hands high, low, and outside (in rapid combination, not focussing on one, then moving to another). Then, I cycle through backcrosses to behind the head (bx bx bx for many reps, bx bx bth for many reps, bx bth bth for many reps, bth bth bth for many reps). This helps me get my joints and muscles warm (especially neck!), and has the benefit of getting me to practise things I want to be very solid every practise.
I have two types of hard tricks: precision-demanding (e.g. blind behind the head) and handspeed/physically fatiguing (e.g. multiple orbits, attempts at 9b flashes). I find warming up helps my performance on both of these fronts.
One strange thing that I've noticed is that my 7b is most solid if I've done some rock climbing about 3-4 hours prior, and eaten a huge meal ~3 hours prior.
That's what I think I hurt myself on... BTH! I really think I jerk my neck too hard the side when I'm looking either way. I can see the merits of just doing this trick blind(Like how Gustaf does it). What do you think?
And that's interesting about the 7 ball pattern. I don't rock climb, but I honestly will try to time that meal out in the future. On a related note, I hate practicing on an empty stomach.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
I found that I learned bth at a slow enough rate for my neck to strengthen at I went. At this point, my neck is very strong, and when someone recorded me doing an endruance run of over 3 minutes at IJA 2013, it didn't particularly hurt.
I LOVE blind behind the head. I practise for quite a while, and finally got a qualify of it a couple years ago...the day before Gustaf put out Sorry won't cut it. For those under 24 hours, I thought I was pretty hot stuff!
I've gotten a little better at it:
https://www.youtube.com/v/jtuoMLWOWv8
(I'm pretty sure it's a tad easier in reverse cascade than cascade)
DAMN you have skills! Do you have any tips? My BTH (while looking!) is going very slowly. I can now flash it out of a cascade, loop one ball back there continuously, and do maybe 3-4 right hand bths consecutively. That's my skillset for that trick. And like you, I want it to be something that I am super solid at.
I feel like one of my biggest problems when I try to run it is that I tend to throw them over my head instead of behind it. Too high, basically.
Mike Moore - - Parent #
Thanks!
Ah, there is one thing that most people skip that I found extremely helpful: doing a 423, with the 3 bth. Doing an equivalent of juggler's tennis is a okay step, but often leads toward a big torso turn, which isn't very useful for running it.
I wouldn't worry about throwing too high at the beginning. As you get more comfortable with the pattern, your corrections will be smaller, and you'll be able to do it lower because of that.
Subscribe to this forum via RSS
1 article per branch
1 article per post