The effectiveness of stretching sport: How does short and long rehabilitation impact post-injury hamstring muscle flexibility?

Introduction: Providing an injury recovery program to improve performance, flexibility, is an integral part of the athlete's life. Because this impact will affect the psychological and quality of skills possessed by athletes. Objective: This study aims to determine the effectiveness of two types of stretching sports, namely static stretching and dynamic stretching, on the improvement of post-injury hamstring muscle flexibility in professional basketball athletes. Methodology: The research design used was a quasi-experiment with a factorial 2x2 design. The subjects of the study were professional basketball athletes from Yogyakarta State University who experienced a decrease in hamstring muscle flexibility after injury, which was then divided into several treatment groups. Flexibility measurements were performed using Sit and Reach tests before and after treatment. Results: The results of the analysis showed that the stretching method had a value of Sig. 0.000. This means that dynamic stretching has a more significant influence on increasing hamstring muscle flexibility in the short term. Meanwhile, static stretching shows stable effectiveness in the long term. Discussion: These findings suggest that the selection of the type of stretching needs to be adjusted to the rehabilitation phase and the individual condition of the athlete. Dynamic stretching is more appropriate in the initial phase of recovery or warm-up before training, while static stretching is more effective in the cooling phase or advanced rehabilitation. Conclusions: Based on the results of this study, it can be concluded that the provision of stretching is important in the development of injury recovery programs and improving flexibility performance in athletes, especially in basketball.