Ideally, yes!

After competing it would be great to get kids re-hydrating and doing some stretching rather than just have them sitting in the car driving home. Problem is, parents may not want to stick around for another 15 minutes or so.

At the very least, if you could encourage them to do some stretching and foam rolling once they got home, that would be helpful as well.

Just remember, the stretching recommendations are mainly for those age 14-15 & up, that are beyond those peak growth spurt years. The younger ones- who should stay away from prolonged static stretching in general- should instead be encouraged to do some light dynamic stretching during the cooldown period.

Hope that helps,

Coach Mike

Building young athletes from the ground up.