The beginner's guide to flexibility

That sounds logical to me. I sure can't wait to read your book.

 

No worries Patrick. Promise to get it finished ASAP.

 

Great! It'll be a public service, and ye shall be richly rewarded!

 

So, it sounds like dynamic stretching may be unnecessary or am I misinterpreting your earlier statement?

 

Dynamic stretches are unnecessary and potentially harmful.

 

You change your mind more often than my wife.
Dynamic stretches were the mutt's nuts two months ago.

How do ballet dancers get flexible?
I bet they know what's what.

 

The removal of dynamic and relaxed stretches from the original post in this thread is the only major change. If anything, it's a good change because it means you don't need to put in as much effort to your flexibility training.

Besides, it was a theory I had for a while and took me a while to get the resources together for the research study.

Ballet dancers, like gymnasts, get flexible because their coaches manipulate the length of connective tissues before the growth spurt. This leads to problems later in life (bursitis is common in adult dancers) and the flexibility is lost with age as the elastin-collagen ratio in connective tissues changes more in favour of collagen. So yah, doing what ballet dancers do isn't a hot idea.

 

I see.
I think I'll stick to leg kicks. Easier to do and more practical.
Flexibility is a minefield.

 

So before a good kick workout should I only perform joint rotations? And what about relaxed stretching after the workout?

 

Van Zandt, would it be too much of a bother for you to quickly look over a strength training program I'm designing for myself? It's 16 weeks long (4 phases), and I plan on using two unique full body workouts per week for each phase. The workouts will stay the same through each phase/month except for the loads. If you have the time to look over the two alternating workout days for the first phase I'd appreciate it. It's just one page total. I just want to make sure I wasn't making any big mistakes. If you're too busy with your book, don't worry about it, I understand.

Thanks,
Patrick

 

Wait...

No more dynamic stretches.

No leg raises immediatly on waking?

Am i reading this right?

 

OK, I'm confused. You now recommend not doing relaxed or dynamic stretching. What's left? All you need is to improve your leg strength and, whop, splits ahoy?

 

This sudden u-turn might be confusing at first, but it makes the process of learning to do splits and high kicks easier and less time consuming.

 

Continue with the joint rotations as previously instructed. If you don't yet have the ability to display your maximal flexibility cold (without a warm up) start off with your kicks at waist height and increase their range over several sets. If you are doing your kicks as part of a strength workout, do your compound strength exercises (squats, deadlifts etc) followed by isometrics. You do not need relaxed stretches.

 

Post away my friend. Send it by PM if you wish or post it on the forum to get others' perspectives.

 

Yes.

 

Yes.

 

Me going to the States for three months at the end of June has nothing to do with an impending lawsuit. Honest :evil:

 

Yes, you should drop dynamic and relaxed stretches. In principle, increasing strength is all you need to do. Specifically:

1. Increase strength in the muscles that stabilise the hips, knees and ankles by doing compound lifts such as squats and deadlifts.

2. Override the stretch reflex through the use of voluntary muscular contractions (isometrics) to bring about further increases in ROM.

3. Increase strength in the muscles which resist during splits and high kicks through isolation exercises such as pulldowns and flies.