LJ xc: Dynamic stretching

By Ed Piper

The setting was the last morning cross country practice of the summer, and the subject was dynamic stretching.

"Dynamic stretching is stretching the muscles while you are using them," explained new La Jolla assistant coach Adam Kittlaus, who formerly was a running coach at Kearny High.

"You work the muscles. Over the last several years, dynamic stretching has been the thing," he said, as he and a visitor, a short distance from Viking head coach Mandy Benham, watched 58 runners warm up on the Fanuel Park grass at the 7:30 workout.

"Static stretching is also used. That is when you just bend down to touch your toes." Commented the visitor, "That's what we used in school when I was growing up."

Kittlaus nodded. "There is a place for static stretching. After the run, you can stretch your legs out with static stretching. Sometimes it is used before the run, as well."

The dynamic stretching the La Jolla High runners were using on this day, and which they have been engaging in the past two weeks in preseason warm-ups, included toe walking, heel walking, "butt kick" running (in which the heel comes up near the rear end, to stretch further), high-knee steps, and leg swings, the last while steadying oneself against a teammate or against a handy tree like those at the Fanuel site.

Kittlaus would seem to know what he's talking about. He coached at Kearny the past six years, four of those as head girls track coach. He "was hired two months ago" at La Jolla. "I have hardly even been to the campus, so I won't know where to go" come Monday with afternoon workouts beginning at the school track. (Tuesdays will be late-start 8:50 a.m. school days, so workouts those days will be at 7 a.m.)