Flexibility Question

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Alienfish360, Jun 11, 2014.

  1. Alienfish360

    Alienfish360 Valued Member

    As per Van Zandt and Thomas Kurtz.

    If the adducters strength at maximum ROM is directly correlated to flexibility.

    What restricts the spreading of the legs in a sat down position with straight legs?
     
  2. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    Flexibility is joint, speed, angle, and position specific.

    That last part applies to your question.

    You only get strong/flexible in the ways you train it. If all you do is side split from standing, you'll get flexible in that position (some will carry over to the seated version).

    Also, the standing version inhibits the stretch reflex (as does any position which presses your body weight down on the muscle being stretches). The seated side split obviously doesn't do this.

    But this is all moot when you get to a point. Anyone who trains to slide down into a split from standing should have no trouble at all opening his or her legs 180 degrees from sitting.
     
  3. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    #Crisco
     
  4. Alienfish360

    Alienfish360 Valued Member

    I assume standing side splits is still the most beneficial method for increasing flexibility of high kicks?
     
  5. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    Yes. Whether you want to kick high fast (dynamic flexibility) or hold your leg vertical (active flexibility), both are governed by your splits (passive flexibility).

    Put simply, splits are the most effective exercise for increasing hip and knee range of motion due to the extreme angles they demand from you. Hence why they're so damn uncomfortably easy to do. :)
     
  6. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I haven't really had that experience. I always see to increase ROM when weightlifting in active and dynamic flexibility, but not passive. For example I would be capable of kicking like a cheerleader to the front, nearly touching my knee to my face with the leg straight, but I could go nowhere near that in a passive stretch. Or does this apply more with movement to the sides, where the groin stretching is more involved?
     
  7. Alienfish360

    Alienfish360 Valued Member

    This is what I struggle to get my head around Sennin, the more I read, the more confusing it becomes. Almost as if different rules apply to different muscles.
     
  8. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    An inability to replicate dynamic ROM in passive positions points to having made those gains in ballistic movements, i.e. your dynamic flexibility is actually ballistic flexibility.

    So what does this mean?

    You can increase dynamic range of motion doing ballistic stretches. This basically means you have used pushing or bouncing type movements (with or without weight) to force your dynamic flexibility beyond your (current) maximum passive flexibility limit. You will do this automatically every time you try to increase ROM in weight lifting exercises (squats, Romanian dead lifts, hamstring pulldowns, etc).

    What are the considerations for ballistic flexibility (AKA dynamic flexibility which exceeds passive flexibility)? Well:

    1. It relies on elasticity of tissues, and will reduce with age as the ratio of elastin to collagen changes in favour of collagen.

    2. Ballistic flexibility is increased by physically stretching the muscle fibres, as opposed to teaching the tissues to relax by waiting out the stretch reflex (relaxed stretches) or making them stronger (isometrics). By forcibly elongating the muscles, you create microtears that elevate the risk of muscle strains. When you actively work on passive flexibility at the same time (e.g. following weight lifting exercises with isometric and or relaxed stretches), this risk of strains is only slightly higher than if you did just relaxed stretches (the risk is present regardless of what type of stretching you do). This is because relaxed stretches have a positive effect on the healing process after a workout and negate a lot of the damage done by mild ballistic movements (mild being the operative term here). Trying to nut the floor every time you do a toe touch stretch is the opposite of what I'm talking about here. This isn't a licence to tear your hamstrings in half, thinking that doing a couple of static stretches afterwards will magically glue them back together.

    3. It's hard to make ballistic flexibility readily available at any time of day without a warm-up because it doesn't influence the central nervous system.

    Bottom line: ballistic flexibility will degrade over time, can expose you to injury, and is hard to display at its maximum without a warm-up.

    Remember the definitions here: dynamic flexibility remains within your passive flexibility; ballistic flexibility exceeds it. There are other things to consider, but that's the gist of it.

    Hip flexion is normally easier than hip abduction, because it's easier to compensate for soft tissue restrictions with poor form (e.g. in the "cheerleader kick" you described, excessive bending of the standing leg knee to make up for poor hamstring range in the kicking leg).

    Nothing related to athletic conditioning is really simple. I don't know why people would think flexibility training would be any different.
     
  9. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    I will admit that a great 'Merikuhn has just learned something from a lowly Britishen.

    Made a lot of sense actually, and this is definitely information I'll be retaining as I get older! Might as well start working into the transition to doing things smarter now instead of learning by a major tear when I'm 30 or so. My perspective was just put into place here, thanks a ton for the information Van Zandt.
     
  10. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    No putting in place, just sharing what I know. :)

    But I am sigging that, because I may never ever see it again :D
     
  11. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    No, no. Not "putting me in my place" in the forceful sense. It was the helpful, insightful, "I will concede to having my perspective adjusted from this good reasoned explanation" type of "putting in my place." Like, you know, when you finally agree that 'Merikuh is the best and all, when you've finally seen the light! :p

    Sig. away though, it is a rarity!
     
  12. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    Don't make me come over there and burn down the White House a second time!

    :D
     
  13. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Hmm, I'm not sure a lot of people would actually have a problem with that honestly. Do you think you could do the House and Senate buildings too?
     
  14. AndrewTheAndroid

    AndrewTheAndroid A hero for fun.

    And now everyone on MAP is on a watch list. Or at least another one.
     
  15. mjl

    mjl ITF Taekwon-Do (1st Dan)

    At what age does this become a real issue when trying to develop flexibility? (not that I think this is restricting me at the moment, more that everything is still really tight and has been for decades). Side splits are a mile away.
     
  16. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    The ratio change starts at different ages in different people.

    But it should be a non-issue because you shouldn't be trying to manipulate tissue elasticity - that only works at a young age, before the growth spurt. You can make steady progress at any age if you do it by influencing the CNS.
     
  17. Alienfish360

    Alienfish360 Valued Member

    Another question for you.

    With isometrics, I can tell my splits are getting deeper, but it doesn't seem to translate into this

    [​IMG]

    Should an increase in flexibility towards the splits translate into being able to open legs wider?

    Do the abductors play any part in limiting this form of flexibility?
     
  18. Ero-Sennin

    Ero-Sennin Well-Known Member Supporter

    Obviously you're waiting for Van Zandt to post as he's way more knowledgable, but I want to take a crack at it to see if I'm somewhat right. Feel free to ignore. :p

    I think that depending on the rotation of the humorous/hip joint, different muscles will be stretched both in the standing and sitting attempts at splits. For example, if you're working on splits with your toes pointing laterally with the hips thrust forward, the muscles that need to stretch are more the hamstrings than the groin. If you don't push your hips forward and your toes are pointed forwards, the groin is more the muscle that needs to stretch. Sitting also takes the weight off your body off, so the stretch you're getting is under pressure vs. actual free range of motion. Regardless of which way you stretch (angle your feet/rotate your hips), until you have natural free range of motion in those areas sitting will always have less of an angle than the standing attempt at stretching.

    I'll stand by to see how wrong I am. :p
     
  19. MARBO-man!!!

    MARBO-man!!! Valued Member

    Case in point - when I hit 40, I managed to rip both calf muscles within six months of each other. One when playing squash, the other when teaching and stepping back into a guard to demonstrate a kick.

    On complaining to my doctor he cheerfully told me that as I was over 40 I was now a 'Statistic' as the human body stops producing elastin around that time, and therefore if I persist in my usual daily routine (sat at a desk) and interspersed it with high activity then the same thing was going to happen.

    His only suggestion was to stretch for 5 or 10 minutes on a daily basis - that way I could do with mild exercise what my body was previously producing as a chemical.

    I can't admit to have followed this precisely but I do have a little stretching session 3 or 4 times a week and can report that I have not ripped any major muscle groups in the meantime and surprise surprise have also got a little more flexible!

    I'm actually looking at yoga at the moment as a way of maintaining muscle tone and increasing flexibility - the aim being of course to keep me operational in MA for as long as possible...
     
  20. Van Zandt

    Van Zandt Mr. High Kick

    See this from my first reply:

    Isometrics are about leverage - the more weight you can get to press down on the muscle(s), the stronger your contractions will be, and the greater your post-contractive stretch reflex depression (or increase in stretch following your contraction) will be.

    You can't generate enough tension in your muscles to make isometrics in the seated side split worth your while.

    Abductors (the muscles that pull your legs to the side, away from your centreline) don't play too big a role in limiting side split progress, unless you have really abysmal glute activation (bunch of tests you can Google to check it out). The root cause in nearly 100% of cases of poopy side splits I encounter is short, tight, and weak adductors (inner thigh muscles). The rare time it isn't (and I'm talking lottery winning, plane crashing, lightning striking odds here) is down to bone structure disorders, like coxa vara. If you can abduct each thigh to 90° while standing on one leg, you probably don't count amongst those rarest of rare statistics.

    Don't expect to be able to sit down and open your legs to 180° until you can do the standing version first.
     

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