Abstract
Cardiac rehabilitation programs have been implemented as a result of patients benefiting from exercise post-surgery of a cardiac event. An important goal for cardiac rehab programs to strive to achieve is increasing the flexibility of the patients. Static stretching prior to exercise has been utilized in warm-ups throughout cardiac rehabilitation ‘rehab’ clinics. However, no research has observed the influence of static stretching on a cardiac rehab population. Recently, research has concluded that pre-exercise stretching is equivocal based upon differentiating results on range of motion and endurance within healthy sedentary or untrained populations (Kokkonen, 2007; Fowles, 2000). It is unknown if pre-exercise stretching influences the patients’ endurance and flexibility. The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of pre-exercise static stretching upon the functionality and cardiovascular endurance of the cardiac rehab population. Twelve subjects (females = 3) were classified as cardiac rehabilitation patients who participated in low-intensity exercise 3-d-wk in the maintenance phase at the cardiac rehabilitation program. The cross-over, within-subjects design had the subjects complete a four-week study, weeks one and three are 3-d-wk of no stretching, and weeks two and four are 3-d-wk of placebo or experimental stretching while attending the cardiac rehab program. Week one, no pre-exercise stretching was performed; only the collection of baseline measurements (baseline) of RPE, peak heart rate (HR) on each exercise modality, and HR one-minute post-exercise during full exercise sessions. The six-minute walking test (meters) was completed by all subjects following week one, week two, and week four. To collect HR measurements, the subjects wore Polar® HR monitors throughout the study. Week two, the subjects were divided into two groups, experimental performed ten 30-second stretch-holds, repeated once and a placebo performing ‘ineffective’ stretching. Week three, was a wash-out week, no stretching performed. At the end of week three, the subjects had cross-over from experimental to placebo and vice-versa. Week four, final dependent variables that were collected were peak HRs, RPE, and HR one-minute post-exercise. Statistical analyses of one-way ANOVAs, followed by tukey post-hoc test were used to determine the influence of pre-exercise stretching on the subjects’ peak HR, RPE, HR one-minute post-exercise and six-minute walking tests. Experimental versus the baseline had a significant increase within the six-minute walking tests (405.66 ± 19.22 m vs 461.54 ±26.87 m p = 0.005). There was no difference between placebo and baseline and between experimental and placebo treatments within the (3) six-minute walking tests. There was no significant difference between all three treatments (p = 0.3) over the three days a week of treatments (p = 0.2), and no significant difference in peak heart rates between the days and treatments (p = 0.7) for peak HRs. . There was no significant difference between experimental, placebo, or baseline (p = 0.3), no significant difference between the three days a week of treatments (p = 0.5), and no significant difference between the days and treatments (p = 0.9) for RPE. The experimental treatment had significantly higher HR one-minute post-exercise versus the baseline on Monday (88.3 ±4.1 bpm vs 80.0 ±2.8 bpm p = 0.0001) and Wednesday (86.6 ± 4.2 bpm vs 79.2 ± 2.9 bpm p = 0.0001) and no significant difference on Friday (p = 0.48). The experimental treatment had a significantly higher HR one-minute post-exercise versus the placebo treatment on Monday (88.3 ± 4.1 bpm vs 83.4 ± 2.2 bpm p = 0.004) and no significant difference on Wednesday (p = 0.07) or Friday (p = 0.88). There was no significant difference between the experimental, placebo, or baseline in HR one-minute post-exercise on Friday. Pre-exercise static stretching improved the distance (meters) in six-minute walking tests over duration of one week by improving functionality. Pre-exercise static stretching also improved HR one-minute post-exercise over duration of one week. Pre-exercise static stretching had no influence upon peak HRs and rate of RPE.