You stretch before running, jumping and throwing, right? That's been the conventional wisdom for, well, forever. But forever may come to an end amid new research that says stretching might actually be bad for you.

Your performances may suffer, and you won't prevent injuries either, according to this counter-intuitive New Wisdom.

For a great summary of this new view of stretching, see Gina Kolata's recent article in The New York Times titled "To Stretch or Not to Stretch? The Answer Is Elastic."

Stretching before training and competition has been part of my routine for four decades. It's almost a religion. But my faith has been tested by these new studies.

Kolata, a W60 runner and one of the best health and fitness writers in the business, focused on an issue I've been wondering about: Yeah, stretching may hurt your performance, but don't you need it to avert injury? Well, the experts she talked seem to lean toward the idea stretching doesn't prevent injuries either.

But even though definitive studies haven't been done (since maybe it's the warmup that's needed but not the stretching component of it), one wrinkle remains off the radar:

Should Masters athletes pay any attention to what experts say about elite young athletes and their warmup/stretching routines?

Here's my strong belief: The older you get, the more essential stretching becomes.

Kolata quotes a Dr. Charles Kenny:

"Stretching the hamstring muscle, for example, teaches the muscle to relax when the knee is fully extended, Dr. Kenny said. But that is not what a runner needs. Instead, runners need to have their hamstrings stiff and activated when the knees are extended. Of course, one test of how passionate researchers are about stretching is to ask them whether they themselves stretch. Many say they do."

Activated shmactivated, I say. Stretching before racing simply prepares body parts for activity. It's bizarre to think the day's first test of a joint is when you're jumping, throwing or sprinting full-force in competition.

When I noted the Kolata story on my masterstrack.com blog, I got some interesting comments.

A fellow named Paul wrote: "The statement by Dr. Kenney, that 'Stretching the hamstring muscle, for example, teaches the muscle to relax when the knee is fully extended' seems to lack context. If you spend 10 minutes stretching and one hour running per day I think your muscles will 'learn' more from the 1 hour. Personally if I do a two-mile warmup where I stop for easy stretches after the first mile (just to the edge of my range of motion for each stretch). I find an instant improvement in how I feel when I start the second mile."

Another athlete wrote: "Never stretched much in high school and never seems worse for wear. Once I began college track, of course, they taught us 'real' stretching and I managed to get pretty limber. However, I always noticed that my muscles felt much weaker after the fact and I felt like this affected my practices and performances. I never questioned it, though, because I was doing what I was taught. I tend to think that dynamic stretching using activity simulating drills is much better for maintaining power and warming up the muscles."

And Pete Magill, a 46-year-old distance runner fresh off several American age-group records, posted this: "Stopped stretching before workouts back in my 20s. Had noticed that the stretching without being warmed up actually led to injury. But I also started stretching AFTER workouts, which led to immediate and obvious improvement in recovery for the next day's workout (credit the New Zealanders for figuring this out before the rest of us). I now also add exercises that reincorporate under-used muscle fibers and which simultaneously take other muscles out of perpetual spasm (in reaction to muscle imbalances created by the former).

"Bottom line: I don't use stretching (or other exercises) to get more limber. I use it to aid the recovery process. And without it I wouldn't make it through a single month."

USA Track and Field is conducting a study on the merits of stretching, and I hope enough older age-groupers are involved to answer my question about whether masters have special stretching needs.

I once had the honor of warming up with world record holding hurdler Courtland Gray (back in 1997 at San Jose nationals). And as we did 50-meter build-up sprints on the backstretch, he reminded me: "You gotta burn the muscles before they're ready to race."

I think stretching obeys the same principle. Burn 'em first!

Tags: Stretching

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At fabled Hayward Field in Eugene, Ore., the U.S. Olympic Trials for track and field begin June 27 and end July 6. But athletes and fans get a break for two days -- July 1-2. They call 'em Rest Days. But not for some fortunate Masters tracksters.
 
Yesterday on the Track & Field News message board, Trials meet director Tom Jordan posted this revelation:

"There will be all-comers meets on the two 'rest' days, July 1 & 2. July 1 will be for kids; July 2nd for teens and up. Very limited slate of running events; no field events. It's mostly to give interested athletes the chance to run on Hayward Field during the Olympic Trials."

I'm still awaiting details on how Masters can enter the July 2 event. (My blog at masterstrack.com/blog will eventually have the goods.)

But if this pans out, it sounds like a dream-come-true opportunity to test your legs and lungs on the same superfast track as the team bound for Beijing. Even more exciting: Fans might fill the newly remodeled grandstands and cheer you on!

Eugene has long been known as Track Town USA (where the nearby pizza joint -- which I highly recommend -- is called Track Town Pizza). Hayward Field -- an 88-year-old, oft-improved track stadium -- has undergone a $7.39 million overhaul. Included is a rearranged infield and track surface, and new lights for TV coverage for night events. (But not live TV; you'll have to visit my Trials blog for real-time results and commentary. More on that in a few months.)

Eugene is no stranger to Masters, of course. In 1989, a legendary WAVA world masters track championships were held there. In 2000 and 2003, Eugene hosted the USATF national masters outdoor championships. Many Masters secretly (and not so secretly) wish the masters national championships were held in cool and comfy Eugene every year. (Many other sites have been dreadfully hot and humid, including Charlotte, N.C., in August 2006, when the meet was almost called off due to a heat emergency.)

But the soonest Eugene will host nationals again is probably 2011, and we haven't heard a peep about their interest in making a bid.

Tom Jordan, a former Track & Field News staff writer, is well-known to Masters of the 1990s. During that decade, he served as executive vice president of the World Association of Veteran Athletes (now WMA). Although he was more interested in promoting his tour service to Masters world meets than promoting Masters track, he at least knows our sport.

But even if Masters are squeezed out of the all-comers meet, older age-groupers will still have showcase events during the Trials themselves. They are part of a series of exhibitions held at every major USATF elite meet.

According to Mark Cleary of Southern California, the coordinator of these invitational events, a Masters men's 3,000-meter run and a women's 200-meter dash will be held at the Trials -- in front of the paying crowds and world media.

Here's what you need to know about these two races:

"To apply for entry into Masters invitational events, you must have met the following standards in 2007 or 2008 (priority will be given to times run in 2008). Fully automatic timing (F.A.T.) is the only method of timing acceptable for qualifying marks. Relay splits may not be used for qualifying.

"Event: Masters Men's 3000m    
Standard: 9:35.00    
Field size: 12 with 3 alternates

Event: Masters Women's 200m    
Standard: 28.80    
Field size: 8 with 3 alternates"

The application deadline is 9 p.m. ET June 11, 2008.

But even if you're among the Masters superstars good enough to enter these showcase events, be aware you're not THAT special.

Trials qualifiers with Olympic aspirations get financial aid to travel to Eugene.

Masters? 

"You must pay the entry fee of $25, by check or money order, prior to June 11, 2008."

Tags: Masters Track

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Forty years ago, David Pain organized the first USA Masters national track championships in San Diego. Four weeks ago, I called David at his home near San Diego State University to let him know that a Web site archiving his Masters track memorabilia -- including results of his San Diego nationals -- had gone live.

Mastershistory.org had arrived!

As briefly noted by Editor Sean Callahan in this site, mastershistory.org is an attempt by a handful of Masters (mainly hurdlers, by happenstance) to collect and preserve the rich history of our niche. A USATF Masters Track & Field subcommittee led by chairman Jeff Davison of Southern California, Andy Hecker of Ventura, Jeff Brower of Texas, Dave Clingan of Oregon, Randy Sturgeon of Sacramento and moi assembled the materials and posted them online -- free for all.

You may have seen it. More than 1,500 people already have (with a significant 300 returning to browse again). And according to site stats, a quarter of the site's visitors poke around for at least 20 minutes and as much as an hour.

The site was revealed publicly for the first time in the February issue of National Masters News, published by Sturgeon. Then I blogged an announcement Feb. 16 that began thusly:

"Until this month, if you wanted to read back issues of David Pain's legendary USMITT newsletters, you had to journey to San Diego and rummage through cardboard boxes in a rental unit. Until this month, if you wanted to review Veteris magazine, a British-based WAVA publication, you had to search dusty attics in the UK. And until this month, if you wanted to see virtually all major USA national and WMA world meet results, you'd have to do a whole lotta Web searching. No more."

The contents -- thousands of PDF pages and dozens of external links -- fall into the broad categories of Results, Archives, Rankings, Hall of Fame and Galleries.  I designed the site in less than a week after downloading some free templates off the Web. And M45 hurdler Davison, who did the vast majority of document scanning over half a year,  persuaded USATF Masters Track & Field at its Hawaii convention to bankroll the site (pay for domain name registration, Web hosting and such).

Davison's efforts made a dream come true for M50 hurdler Hecker.

In early December 2006, I noted Hecker's longing for an "online Masters museum."

I wrote back then:

"In the wake of an Indy convention (of USATF) that celebrated Masters Hall of Famers going back 30 or more years, Andy writes: 'We would like to recapture the history of our sport. We are looking for the stuff you or one of the old guys in your club might have put away in a box in the garage. Nobody will see it there. We want to create a permanent online  museum to the accomplishments of our predecessors, and of course build a system so things are not lost in the future. I am also hoping to recruit volunteers to help process what we are able to find into a viewer-friendly presentation.  . . . Currently, as we go back in time, it is harder to find old results online. Our LOCs are not contracted or obligated to hold onto results of our National Championships for any length of time, so it is only through the courtesy of masterstrack.com that some fairly recent results were copied and survive. Lesser meets  have a progressively less chance of surviving (so they need more of our attention).

"If you know anybody who was around when the sport started, see if you can get access to their box of old stuff, their photo albums, their news clippings, their medals and trophies. Capture what you can, preferably electronically, and send it to me."

Several folks heeded Hecker's call, including M45 hurdler Brower, who also serves as the Masters liaison to the USATF Web site. Brower already had made a major contribution by scanning results from National Masters News for his own Web site.

Although it's sponsored by USA Track & Field, mastershistory.org ranges far and wide across the global Masters track movement. The site boasts the first virtually complete results of world Masters track championship results -- all 17 editions of the WAVA/WMA world outdoor championships, starting with the inaugural Toronto meet in August 1975.
 
The original Toronto results book is posted, including page after page of photos of such Masters legends as Hal Higdon, Bob Boal, Bill Andberg -- and David Pain.

In the results book documenting the 1989 WAVA world championships in Eugene, Ore., discus legend and entrant Al Oerter (who won the M50 age group) is quoted as saying the meet was "more like the Olympics than the Olympics."

Plenty of Web sites celebrate the history of the Olympic Games.

Now we have a Web site that trumpets the history of Masters track.

Hope you like it.

Tags: Mastershistoryorg

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When is a record not a record?

When I was a budding track nut in the late 1960s, I knew all the world records by heart. They didn't change much. Jim Ryun's 3:51.1 mile and Valeriy Brumel's 7 foot, 5 3/4-inch high jump seemed written in stone. At least in this Stone's imagination.

Now I've seen those records fall, and hundreds more. I can't conjure all the track WRs anymore. But I'm supremely confident I can find them if need be. A good almanac and a hundred Web sites all agree that the current mile record is 3:43.13 and the high jump WR is 8-0 1/2.

But when you ask me the American W40 indoor record for 800 meters -- as a gentleman who works for ESPN did recently -- I have to cough and apologize for a long-winded reply. Do you want the "listed" record or the "real" record?  (He had asked for the "accepted" record.) The question came before last weekend's AT&T USA National Indoor Track & Field Championships in Boston, which ESPN taped for Sunday showing.

Alisa Harvey, 42, was on a record streak -- and had qualified for the elite USA nationals, and I told the ESPN guy that the best indoor 800 by a women 40 to 44 was her 2:07.08 from late January at Penn State. But the W40 indoor record listed by USA Track & Field was Alisa's own 2:07.23 from 2006. On Saturday, however, Alisa lowered her January mark to 2:06.08. And in the finals Sunday, she took sixth in yet another AR: 2:05.75 -- which virtually assures that she'll compete in the U.S. Olympic Trials this coming June in Eugene, Ore.

With dozens of events and 14 five-year age groups (from 35-39 to 100-plus), Masters track has hundreds of age-group indoor and outdoor records. And even though few can be termed "soft," they are broken with incredible regularity. So the official Web sites of Masters track can't be blamed for not always listing recent bests.

But in my 12 years as a close observer of Masters track, I've come to realize that dozens of official American and world records are nonsense. By that I mean: They don't recognize true Masters bests. Many legitimate marks set in officially sanctioned meets (including the Olympics!) should be listed as Masters age-group records -- but aren't.

On my Web site and blog (click here to visit www.masterstrack.com), I've chronicled dozens of examples of genuine age-group bests ignored by the record books. Sometimes, official Web sites don't even agree on a world record.

Five years ago, I compared a set of Masters bests (men 40-and-up, and women 35-39 and women 40-and-up) prepared by Peter Matthews of Britain with the official records maintained by WMA, the governing body of world Masters track.

My finding: They agreed on a meager 57 percent of the records.

Peter Matthews is the editor of a world-renowned statistical annual put out by the Association of Track and Field Statisticians and chairs the National Union of Track Statisticians in the UK. He doesn't mess around.

So if almost half the records in his compilation disagree with WMA in just three age groups, what hope do we have for the other 25 age groups (men and women combined)?

This is not an esoteric question for Masters geeks.

Such questions as "Who's the fastest? The best jumper? The farthest thrower?" are part of the human condition -- and a constant query by fans, sportswriters and athletes themselves.

So my heart falls every time I see a record ignored -- or the converse: a mark elevated to record status it doesn't deserve.

The latest examples?

I posted this on my blog over the weekend:

"Running in the rain, Joe King, 81, clocked a mile Saturday in 7:13.25. That beats the listed M80 world record of 7:16.16 by Canada's Hans Weickhardt in 1994 and the listed AR of 7:36.55 by John Hosner in 2006. However, 80-year-old John Keston ran 6:48.3 in May 2005 -- a mark that created a buzz for change in USATF rules. (Rules were eventually changed, but his mark was not grandfathered.) . . . .  I also notice that Pat Manson's 5.36-meter (17 feet, 7 inches) pole vault mark at Reno is now listed as the M40 world indoor record -- even though Jeff Hartwig's M40 season  best of 5.70 (18-8 1/4) is listed by the IAAF. I guess the record application is still on a boat from Stuttgart."

In the case of the Joe King mile, the meet Web site listing his time had "NWR" next to the clocking. New World Record. It wasn't. But who can tell? In the case of Hartwig's vault, it was too recent to process.

But most of the record anomalies involve performances that long ago should have been resolved, including the milestone first 7-foot high jump by a 40-year-old.

In January 2005, I recounted in excruciating detail how Glen Conley's clearance of  7-0 5/8 in August 1997 at the Empire State Games was relegated to the trash heap of history. Today, the listed M40 world and American record remains Jim Barrineau's  6-11 from 1995.

Conley's historic 7-footer wasn't completely ignored, however.

In late 1997, the USATF Masters Track & Field Committee voted Conley's jump "Masters Track and Field Performance of the Year."

Just don't ask why it's not a record.

Tags: Records

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In 1984, Roald Bradstock was the British record holder in the javelin throw. He was among the favorites to medal at the Los Angeles Olympics but took seventh in the final, handicapped by a severe adductor pull in his right leg.

"It was very, very painful," Roald recalled over the weekend.

But Roald, who turns 46 in April, doesn't dwell on that loss. He's had too many achievements to celebrate since then, including an official Masters world age-group record in the javelin set last year in Florida (235 feet, 4 inches.)

I once asked Roald how long he planned to be a competitive javelin thrower, asking if he'd stop at 50, 60, 90. Roald's reply: "Until I am dead! I am taking my javelins to the grave with me."

For now, Roald also is taking down American records while pointing for the Olympic Trials in late June. He became a U.S. citizen in 1995, and works as an artist in Atlanta, where his largest paintings sell for $10,000. He's also involved in an art project for the 2012 Games in his birthplace of London, which prompted a BBC commentator to brand him the "Olympic Picasso."

But lately he's drawn attention for his other pastime -- "throwing silly things" for distance. It seems to have started in 2001, when he applied for Guinness Book of Records recognition for tossing a golf ball 170 yards.

Lately he's added some records -- flinging an iPod, a cell phone, a soccer ball and a soft-boiled egg. The iPod, once used by his wife and stepdaughters, flew 154 yards. Video of the heave has been posted on YouTube (and also on my blog at masterstrack.com).

At first, I made fun of Roald's shtick. I named him the "Looney Limey." His sense of humor intact, he explained what he called "this stunt."

"The main reason was as a PR move -- and a free one at that," he told me. "It has worked. The BBC have met once and are meeting again this Tuesday to discuss me going on National TV to show my artwork, talk about my various proposals for the 2012 Olympic and Paralympics, talk about my historic athletic plans for this year and also get the Officials from Guinness to be in attendance as I try to set some new Official Guinness Book of Records on air."

Intrigued, I sent him a series of queries, to which he graciously responded:

Ken Stone: Do you ever worry about injuring yourself by tossing these odd objects?

Roald Bradstock: No, not at all. I have always thrown golf balls as part of my training program. I have never had any shoulder or elbow problems ever. In fact, I have never had a single surgery!? How many javelin throwers can say that?? The key is warming up, training smart and listening to your body. I also believe that throwing very light objects conditions the body, especially the shoulder, and keeps the arm fast.

KS: Some javelin throwers use the TurboJav or softballs to practice in off season. Do you throw these?

RB: No. However one time, I believe it was in 1989 after the Bruce Jenner meet, I was playing around outside the hotel with some other throwers and I launched (a TurboJav) across the street into some trees. It seemed a really, really long way, but I could not tell you how far.

KS: What is your advice to people wanting to emulate your practice of throwing everyday objects for distance?

RB: Don't do it! I did this and filmed it for fun and to poke fun at The Guinness Book of Records. But there are lots of other reasons why I threw these objects and filmed it and then posted them online for everyone to see. . . Sure throwing these things is, well, a wee bit bizarre to say the least but that is (the) point. Videos that explode online . . .fall into one of three categories: sexual, violent/aggressive or bizarre/extremely unusual. The first two are not options for me. . . . Options for what? you ask. Well, options to market myself, to promote my artwork and projects and proposals I am working on -- all for free!

KS: Have you ever thrown a football for distance?

RB: No. It is a completely different movement from javelin. You throw a football from the elbow with a very short pull. You throw the javelin with the entire body and long pull
from the chest and shoulder.

KS: I couldn't make out what the iPod was playing when you
tested it after the throw. What was the song? 

RB: "A Man Called Sun" by The Verve.

KS: Where did you throw the iPod/soccer ball, etc.?

RB: I threw at the 1996 Olympic warmup track in Atlanta, Ga. It is three blocks from the 1996 Olympic Stadium, which is now Turner Field.

KS: How many people have seen your various YouTube videos?

RB: It is now getting into the thousands. The soccer ball throw, which just came out, has got over 500 hits in five days, the iPod throw is over 200 for two days.

KS: What else do you plan to throw? How about paintbrushes?

RB: Oh, come on now, Ken, that would just be ridiculous.

Tags: Track

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