Skin temperature changes during muscular static stretching exercise

This study aimed to investigate the acute effects of stretching exercise on skin temperature, flexibility, passive muscle stiffness, and pain during hamstring stretching in healthy young subjects. Thirty-one participants (n=31) were randomly divided into 2 groups: an experimental group (EG, n=15), which was submitted to hamstring stretching exercise for 180 sec, and the control group (n=16), which was not exercised. Skin tem-perature (TsK) was collected in subjects’ posterior thigh using a ther-mographic camera at 7 time points with intervals of 30 sec each: T0 (rest), T30, T60, T90, T120, T150, and T180. In addition, the knee range of motion, passive stiffness and muscle soreness (visual analogue scale) were recorded during the stretching procedure at the same times. The EG presented a small but progressive increase in TsK (30.8˚C±0.6˚C to 31.1˚C±0.6˚C, P