Jacob Raab ‘26 enters the Fonseca Center Gym and laces up his basketball shoes. He then steps onto the court for pre-practice stretches. He stretches in unison with his teammates, demonstrating the team’s camaraderie.
Stretching is the first thing on every Boys Varsity Basketball practice agenda at Masters. It starts almost every practice for a variety of sports. But for basketball specifically, it is particularly vital to overall team growth.
Raab said, “[Stretching] definitely creates a routine. Stretching has helped me with many injuries and whatnot. I had a lot of injury problems in the past, so stretching with Coach’s help has helped me stay in games and not become hurt.”
Master’s Head Trainer, Kalya Medina, shed light from the faculty angle, as she said, “Specifically for basketball, stretching helps warm up the joints and the muscles, and it can prevent some injuries that are usually prescribed. A lot of times, we’ll see injuries in the ankles, the calves, and even sometimes the shoulder areas. So by warming up and loosening up those areas, especially if they’ve been doing weight training, it will help prevent overstretching of those injuries, especially during more dynamic movements.”
In addition to helping with injuries, stretching also helps basketball players in their on-court performance. Medina said, “There’s a variety of different types of stretches. Usually, what we recommend before practices or before the activity is to do more dynamic stretching.” She continued, “That’s usually where you’re doing longer, bigger movements. Sometimes you’ll see teams do stuff where they run back up and down the court, doing high knees, butt kicks, you know, karaoke-type drills. It’s mainly trying to warm up and prep the body for a higher-level impact activity.”
Medina continued, “Different people may have specific areas they want to focus on. Like if they have tight calves, they’ll want to do a little bit more static stretching, which is like the long hold, the long-hold ones. Usually, we recommend more static stretching for after workouts, because that’s the time when you try to help reduce inflammation and reduce some of that tension that maybe you’ve built up during your activity.”
Before every practice, one can catch the team doing butt-kicks and high-knees in the Strayer Gym, improving their flexibility and displaying their commitment to improve stretchability. Coach Ahmed Galimore said, “Stretching in the weight room plays a big factor in a lot of the things we do on the court. It allows the kids to be able to get up and down in a healthy way while staying loose and injury-free.”
