Context: Stretching is common within sports as a potential maneuver for injury prevention. Stretching induced changes in muscle spindIe properties is a suggested mechanism. This may imply a reduction in proprioception following stretching, however, little is known of this association. Our finding showing no effect of acute stretching on shoulder position sense provides insight into this issue.

Objectives: To evaluate if acute stretching of the shoulder muscles affects position sense.

Design: A crossover design with subjects randomized to 3 groups, as regarded by the I sequence of 3 interventions.

Setting: A university human research laboratory.

Patients or Other participants: Nine female (age, 21 +2) and 9 male (24 + 3) healthy volunteers.

lntervention(s): The interventions consisted of stretching of shoulder 1) agonists, 2) antagonists, and 3) non-stretching control.

Main Outcome Measure(s): Position sense acuity of the right shoulder was determined before and arter the interventions by subjects at tempting to reproduce arm positions of 15° and 30° (shoulder adduction) while starting at 45° to the sagittal plane. The outcome variables were the response variability (variable error, VE) and overall accuracy (absolute error, AE).

Results: A multivariate repeated measures analysis ofvariance revealed that the relative change in VE (i.e., VE after/VE before) was not significantly different between the interventions (p = 0.38). Similarly no change in AE was found (p = 0.76). Furthermore, there were no differences regarding test sequence or in the interaction 'intervention x sequence' for either VE (p = 0.73 and 0.53, respectively) or for AE (p = 0.71 and 0.67, respectively)

Conclusions: The present study showed no effect on shoulder position sense after an acute bout of stretching either agonist or antagonist shoulder muscles.