The Effect of Static Stretching and PNF Hold-Relax Stretching on Increasing Flexibility of Shortened Hamstring Muscle among Sedentary Living Female Students - Randomized Controlled Trial

Background and Objective: Hamstring muscle plays an important role in functional activities and relaxation. Shortened muscle may hampers the functional activities. The most widely used method for increasing muscle flexibility is stretching. The Study was design to determine and compare the effect of static stretching (SS) or PNF Hold-Relax stretching technique on improving hamstring muscle flexibility on sedentary living female population aged between 18 and 25 years. Materials and Methods: The Study id Randomized controlled trial in which 30 females of aged between 18 and 25 years living sedentary lifestyle were included with marked tightened hamstring muscles with knee extension range greater than20 degrees were randomly categorized into two groups named as Group 1 static stretching; (n=15), Group 2 PNF Hold-Relax stretching (n=15). Both groups were tested for 5 days a week for consecutive 4 weeks. Active knee Extension test (AKET) was used to assess the motion range of knee extension as an outcome measure in both groups. Results: Statistically, Independent t-test was used for comparison between both stretching techniques. The results showed that after 4 weeks of intervention there were a significant improvement in the hamstring flexibility after static stretching intervention for right leg and after Hold-Relax stretching intervention for left leg among sedentary living females with significance value of 0.006 (pless than0.05). Conclusion: It is concluded that both, Static stretching and PNF Hold-relax Stretching are significantly effective in improving range of knee extension but on clinical determination Hold-relax revealed slightly greater effect than static stretching on increasing hamstring flexibility.