Gidds:
I'm always pulling or straining something when diving (free diving or scuba diving). I am aware that part of this has to do with poor physical condition (7 lashes with a wet noodle for me). When I was a kid and during college I was quite involved with sports and we always did extensive stretching before practice or games. If I did stretchs before diving (as well as work on getting into shape) could I reduce the strains and pulls?
While we're talking about strains I have another question about over-doing physical activity. After I strain something how long should I abstain from exercising whatever happens to be strained?
I am forever getting tendonitis and have some permenant sports injuries due to my bad habit of being overzealous. I'd rather not damage myself in a way that would keep me from diving.
Well, predive stretching will certainly increase your available ranges of motion, potentially making finning, horizontal trim, and things like reaching your valves easier. It will also reduce your chance of cramping.
It's hard to say whether it will keep you from pulling something, because if you're placing enough strain on a muscle to injure it, it is not likely that stretching it beforehand will help too much. Overall, most current research on stretching suggests that it does not decrease risk of injury. However, these studies are looking at runners, swimmers, and weight lifters, primarily. That is a far cry from studying all of the uses of flexibility and how they might affect chance of injury.
If you think about it, though, rarely do we strain our muscles when they are at their maximum length, which is primarly what stretching modifies. Usually, the strain comes when a muscle is contracted, yet overcome by an external force (weight, momentum of our body, or an opposing muscle group).
I have three articles demonstrating stretches specifically for divers at
http://www.divefitness.com/html/guides.html. Scroll down to where you see the excerpts, and you will find them.
Your second question is a little harder to answer, because there are small strains and big strains. Plus, there are injuries that might feel like strains but might be something more involved. Thus, there is no set answer. However, a good rule of thumb is that you can usually do anything that does not cause pain. Plus, you should gently move injuries through their entire range of motion several times each day while they heal. This reduces the chance that you will lose range of motion from scar tissue.
In other words, it is rare that you would want to stop activity altogether, but you must be careful about what you do until you are pain free. If anything hurts more than 10-14 days (average "knitting" time for basic soft tissue injuries), then you should definitely get it checked out by an MD or PT.
Cameron
