STRETCHING EXERCISES USED TO WARM UP DO NOT IMPROVE 1-RM PERFORMANCE OF VOLLEYBALL PLAYERS

Volleyball is classified as high intensity and short duration sport. Stretching exercises are frequently included as preparatory activity for training and games. Kokkovonen et al. (1998) suggests that stretching exercises used before activities of maximum strength can decrease the performance, however Unick et al. (2005) suggests that stretching prior to a competition may not affect the performance negatively. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to verify if stretching exercises as preparatory activity for these athletes decrease the performance of the one repetition maximum (1-RM)