Stretching and injuries in men undertaking running training

PiekorzZuzanna,KwiatkowskiDamian, LewandowskiAndrzej. Stretching and injuries in men undertaking running training.Journal of Education, Health and Sport. 2021;11(6):11-22. eISSN 2391-8306. DOI http://dx.doi.org/10.12775/JEHS.2021.11.06.001 https://apcz.umk.pl/czasopisma/index.php/JEHS/article/view/JEHS.2021.11.06.001 https://zenodo.org/record/4896055 The journal has had 5 points in Ministry of Science and Higher Education parametric evaluation. § 8. 2) and § 12. 1. 2) 22.02.2019. © The Authors 2021; This article is published with open access at Licensee Open Journal Systems of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun, Poland Open Access. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium,provided the original author (s) and source are credited. This is an open access article licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non commercial license Share alike. (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) which permits unrestricted, non commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited. The authors declare that there is no conflict of interests regarding the publication of this paper. Received: 15.05.2021. Revised: 21.05.2021. Accepted: 03.06.2021. Stretching and injuries in men undertaking running training 1Zuzanna Piekorz (ORCID: 0000-0002-2881-1521), 1Damian Kwiatkowski, 1Andrzej Lewandowski (ORCID: 0000-0003-0123-6608) 1Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland Corresponding author:Andrzej Lewandowski, Chair Department of Physiotherapy, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, ul. Świetojańska 20, 85-094 Bydgoszcz, Poland Tel./ fax +48 52 585-54-16, fax: ext. 119, E-mail: andrzej.lewandowski@cm.umk.pl Acknowledgments: The research was carried out as part of its statutory activities of the Department of Basic of Physical Culture, Faculty of Health Sciences, Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum in Bydgoszcz, Nicolaus Copernicus University. Ethics: A permission to conduct this study was obtained from the Bioethics Committee of the Ludwik Rydygier Collegium Medicum of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń (no. KB 787/2014). All men were informed about the purpose of the study, type and duration of the effort, and the possibility to withdraw from the study without giving any reason. Each potential participant granted a voluntary consent for participation in the study. Conflicts of Interest: The authors declare that there are no conflicts of interest. Abstract word count: 339 Text-only word count: 2570 Number of tables: 3 (tables) Number of figures: 4 (figures) Keywords:running - men - running workout - competition - stretching - injuries Summary Introduction.Physical activity appears in men’s life from the very beginning of their existence, however over last few decades it has become more popular as an amateur sport and recreation. One of the simplest form of physical activity considered as sport is running. Runners very often begin workouts thinking about improving their health but it comes with a risk of getting injured. There are however a lot of factors which can prevent injuries to occur. One of them is doing stretching exercises. The purpose of the study is to validate if stretching exercises can lower the risk of suffering an injury by men beginning a running workouts. In this study it was assumed that doing additional stretching exercises lowers the risk of suffering an injury and is common in people training long-distance running. Materials and Methods.182 men who do running workouts in the city of Bydgoszcz were examined with the use of author’s original questionnaire. It concerned sociodemographic data, running-related issues, stretching and the aspects of sports injuries. Statistics.Ordinal scales were analyzed with nonparametric rank tests, such as the Mann-Withney test, while the nominal scales were tested with nonparametric tests from the Pearson's chi-squared test group. Results.It was found that the largest group of runners are men aged about 32 years, doing running workouts as a part of amateur sport. Of all the subjects, 31% of runners declared the use of additional stretching training. People running with greater frequency and volume, expressed in kilometers, more often decide to undertake stretching exercises. 70% of tested athletes suffered a running-related injury. There was no significant effect of stretching on reducing the risk of injury to runners. Conclusions.Stretching is not very popular among running enthusiasts. Greater running experience and high training loads are factors that make runners decide to use additional stretching exercises more often. The lack of significant differences in the frequency of injuries of competitors using and not undertaking stretching does not allow an unequivocal assessment of its impact on reducing the risk of injury in runners.