Pre-Game Stretching (Troy Burkhart)

Title: Pre-Game Stretching

General Information about item:

Informant Data:

W.S. was born in Gainesville, Florida in the year 1999. He played on club squash (1 year) freshman year and was a weightlifter (4 years) throughout high school. He is majoring in engineering moded with economics and a minor in Japanese. His background is mostly European with family origins in Ireland, Scotland, Germany, and England.

Contextual Data:

Cultural Context: Stretching is a typical exercise that sports teams go through to increase mobility and reduce injuries during games and practice. While the amount of stretching varies in importance for every sport, in high impact running sports like squash, it is a very important exercise to do pre-game.

Social Context: Stretching is usually done in a circle before the game. Teams are able to discuss tactics and strategies for the upcoming game, joke around, and take their mind off the anxiousness for the game.

Item:

According to W.S., most squash players take the rubber ball and use it to stretch their muscles and focus. Players take the ball and place it between their body and the ground and slowly roll back and forth on their feet and arms. However, at Dartmouth, they have a different warm up routine with the squash ball. Instead of rubbing the bottom of their feet, the team takes a squash ball, and goes through a full body warmup using the squash ball rather than just their feet.

Associated files/pictures:

Transcript:

“I roll my entire body starting with my calves, then hamstrings, quads, back and finally lats. I feel much more stretched and prepared than just rolling my feet and arms.”

Informants Comments:

He highly recommends everyone to stretch. It significantly lowered the number of injuries he received while playing sports and he still stretches even though he does not play anymore.

Collector’s Comments:

Stretching is also a huge aspect of pre and post-game for hockey and is pretty much universal in all sports. However, we do this everyday before practice and before and after every game, not just before games.

Collector’s Name:

Tags:

Dartmouth Folklore Archive