Effects of warm-up before stretching on flexibility and torque development in elderly

The purpose of the study was to analyze the effect of warm up exercises on flexibility and torque development of elderly subjects submitted to a protocol of hamstring muscles stretching. 28 subjects (9 men and 19 women), aged 66.4±6 years, volunteered for this study. Subjects were randomly divided into 2 protocols: a stretching protocol (group A) and a warm up and stretching protocol (group B). Both groups received the intervention for 4 weeks, with three sessions per week, consisting of 6 bouts of active stretching lasting 30 seconds. Subjects were evaluated on selection (T1), immediately before the intervention (T2), immediately after (T3) and a month after (T4) the intervention period for measures of knee extension range of motion (ROM) and angle with a goniometer and for active and passive peak torque (Nm s-1) at 60°/s and 2°/s respectively using a isokinetic dynamometer. Anova Two-Way and a post hoc analysis using the Tukey’s test were applied to test the differences between and within groups. Both groups presented reduction of the knee extension range of motion deficit (p=0.001), increase of the active peak torque flexor in eccentric (p=0.003) and concentric (p=0.015) phases, and reduction of the peak torque angle of the knee flexors in the eccentric phase (p=0.046) when comparing T3 with T2 for both groups, without significant difference between groups. The passive peak torque did not vary significantly (p\u3e0.05) between the evaluations. The pre-exercise warm up was unable to elicit differences in flexibility and torque development of the hamstrings in elderly subjects