Need Help with Flexibility Gains

[kristi]

Originally Posted by glowacki

The splits and touching the palms to the floor are very challenging stretches in themselves. What other poses/stretches are you interested in achieving?

I also recommend the Lastics dvds. I have the first one and the instruction is very, very good.

To answer your question, I would like greater flexibility for martial arts. I'm testing for my 3rd degree black belt in September and would like the additional flexibility for my new kata form. It will be very challenging and in order to be competitive at my taekwondo tournaments I need that extra reach. The flexibility will also help with my sparring too.

[suzy]

It sounds like your flexibility is great, but maybe you need better range of motion. I don't have Advanced Lastics, but according to the claims, it should help. I also think Essentrics Flexibility Workout for Athletes, which despite the name will help range of motion. And maybe Essentrics Strength and Stretch in Motion.

[kristi]

Originally Posted by suzy

It sounds like your flexibility is great, but maybe you need better range of motion. I don't have Advanced Lastics, but according to the claims, it should help. I also think Essentrics Flexibility Workout for Athletes, which despite the name will help range of motion. And maybe Essentrics Strength and Stretch in Motion.

Thanks Suzy! Great suggestions! I think loosening my hips will help with my range of motion too. So far "normal" stretching DVDs haven't helped. My fingers are crossed that something will help me.

[Tiny]

Hi Kristi~this is not a stretch DVD but have you thought about maybe Powerstrike 4 by Ilaria Montagnani? I mention this because I remember reading a review that the DVD helped the individual with flexibility because he too was training for martial arts. If I remember correctly he was pretty advanced as well.

[suzy]

I had another thought. Maybe Budokon? Not the beginner one, but the next 3 on the page might have what you're looking for.

Here is a preview on YouTube.

ETA: Oops. I'm sorry. I just saw your requirement that it needs to be 30 minutes so some of my suggestions aren't good... Essentrics Flexibility Workout is an hour. If you listen to Miranda you absolutely can't break it up and still benefit. However it is very easy to break it up into smaller segments.

I believe Budokon is around 45 minutes. If you skip the seated meditation I think they are 35 to 40 minutes, but still maybe too long for a lunch break.

[eam531]

Originally Posted by kristi

I'm in need so some major help from my fellow vidiots. I'm a somewhat flexible person. By that I mean I can do the splits and can touch the palm of my hands to the floor when bending over. LOL I really want to push my flexibility limits, but don't know how to go about doing so.

Here are the criteria I am looking for:

1. I want something I can practice every day during my lunch break. That means I need it to be around 30 minutes in length.

2. I'm not a yoga type of person, however if it will challenge me then I'm game for anything.

3. I want to try challenging stretches/poses too. I don't shy away from anything hard.

Any help is very much appreciated. I'm at a loss at where to even begin. Please suggest, DVDs, websites, youtube, etc.

Thanks!

Kristi

You might look into some of Finis Jhung's workouts. He is a ballet teacher and all of the people demo'ing the exercises in his videos are ballet dancers.
I really like him. His videos are uber pricey, but they are the same stretching workouts that professional ballet dancers do.

[Nuggie's Auntie]

Originally Posted by Sarah-lara

I consider myself flexible enough, so I only ever stretch tight places like hipflexors. There have been too many studies recently showing flexibility can be harmful (it's like stretching out a ligament when you twist your ankle -- it's always injury prone from then on.) Especially for the spine, Stuart McGill warns against a flexibility program, which of course goes against what we see in a lot of DVD's and yoga. And stretching itself seems overrated in terms of enhancing performance and in terms of reducing pain from exercise.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/0...ype=blogs&_r=0

That's an interesting article... is the author mostly talking about stretching for warmups, though? That's the gist I got from it.

[warriorprincess]

There's a lot of great flexibility stuff on mobilitywod.com and gymnasticswod.com

I am currently doing these shoulder passes daily for shoulder flexibility:
http://www.allthingsgym.com/shoulder...lder-mobility/

[AsSweetAsSugar]

Originally Posted by Nuggie's Auntie

That's an interesting article... is the author mostly talking about stretching for warmups, though? That's the gist I got from it.

I also read the article (thanks Sarah), and I got the same thing. I've heard before that stretching cold muscles is a big no no, so I was not surprise that it was not good for a warm up, it was interesting reading why and how it affect performance though. The thing is that they didn't mention anything about stretching at the end of a work out or that stretching in general was not good. If they did, I really missed it.

[Sarah-lara]

It's the first article I could find, but stretching in general has taken serious knocks lately in research. Nobody's quite sure it accomplishes anything, regardless of timing, and the trend seems to be to recommend movement in general over it.

By the way, back when I was running long races and Galloway was already saying runners with stretching programs were among the most injured runners, I started using light bellydancing DVD's as my way of loosening up afterwards and it did really feel good. No research on that, of course, though.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/07/he...Best.html?_r=0

http://www.webmd.com/fitness-exercis...t-sore-muscles

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_...ng_doesnt_work

http://saveyourself.ca/articles/stretching.php

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15495679

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/su...pagewanted=all

http://feelbetterfast.blogspot.com/2...dont-work.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/ma...pagewanted=all