Re: Do animals hurt their muscles?

The assumption that humans injure their muscles if not properly warmed up is not
correct. There is no scientifically supported evidence that humans have to
"warm-up" or stretch prior to exercise to avoid muscle strains. Ian Shier's work
out of Britain shows not association between the two and some work out of
Australia shows a negative association between pre-game stretching and injury
risk.  

Thus there is likely no requirement for animals to warm up.


Some recent references and abstracts are:

J.D. Blank and E.D. Stevens. J Muscle Res Cell Motil. 2001;22(4):301-10. 	
Passive stretching does not protect against acute contraction-induced injury
in EDL muscle

G. Gremion. Rev Med Suisse. 2005 Jul 27;1(28):1830-4.
Is stretching for sports performance still useful? A review of the literature