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Senior Member
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Madison, WI
Posts: 250
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Good for you Britishbulldog, for having added flexibility improvement to your training protocols.
As a former competitive gymnast and coach, I can attest to the value of a stretching routine geared towards the individual's specific activities and goals. By this I mean, while gymnasts and martial artist may require fairly extreme levels of flexibility, most of the rest of athletic, strength, and fitness-minded folk don't, yet many could benefit from improved flexibility and the increased mind/body connection and relaxation, and decreased injury susceptiblity and recovery time that stretching facilitates.
From my personal observations, it appears that most folks could do with a little improvement in their flexibility. Few seem to have even an adequate baseline level. I'm not suggesting that everyone strive for the flexibility of a gymnast or martial artist (unless of course you are one and you need to) but I think most people would experience some benefits from a little stretching as Bulldog has.
It's pretty easy to add some stretching to your routine. The article on the link Bulldog and Kaply offer contains some good basic stretches and instruction. The author's suggestions as to when to stretch are very good, but I differ with his contention that doing so post-workout is a bad idea. His reasons are certainly valid enough, they just don't pertain to everyone. I personally don't experience any of the difficulties he mentions and have encountered only a few people that do.
While my favorite time to stretch is before bed (and boy does it help you sleep good), I usually incorporate it into my daily workout, whether strength or HIIT, in order to save time. Here's how.
After the usual warm the body, raise the pulse-rate, break a slight sweat warmup, I do a series of non-static brief, light stretches for the major muscle groups of the bodypart I'm about to work. I emphasize these are only for the purpose of loosening up, not increasing overall flexibility. I only want to assure that the range of motion for the exercises I'm about to do won't be hindered by any tightness I might be experiencing at the time. I move gently and easily at a moderately slow pace into and out of the stretch, with only the briefest of pauses in the stretched position. I alternate between opposing muscle groups, anywhere from 3-6 times, depending on how much loosening up I may need at the moment. For example, full-body workout starting with legs, I do a quad stretch alternated with ham stretch back and forth 'til loose, then on to glutes/outer thigh alternated with inner thigh. These are slow, gentle, moving stretches, not holds, only take a couple minutes, and should not induce any strength loss. Quite the contrary in my experience. Once I've done this for legs, I proceed with doing whatever leg exercises are on the docket for the day and use the rest intervals between sets and/or exercises to loosen up my upper body in the same manner I did for my legs. By the time I'm done with my leg work, my upper body is already prepared for its work. Now here's where the real stretching to improve flexibility begins.
All 'stretching' up to this point has really only been a loosening up to ensure the full range of motion for the day's exercises is easily met. Now while I'm doing my upper body work I use the rest intervals between sets/exercises to do stretches for my legs that will increase overall flexibility. These are done in the same manner as the 'warmup' stretches, only this time incorporating position holds that progressively increase in length of time. Since my leg work has already been done, the temporary blunting of contractile strength that occurs with static stretching is rendered irrelevant. The muscles are quite warm and ready to be stretched, especially after the initial tightness induced by the leg work has been worked through. By the time I'm done with the upper body work, my legs have been thoroughly stretched, and I then do the same for my upper body as an active cool down. In this way, very little time has been added to the workout, since the majority of the stretching has been done during the already existing rest intervals. If I do a full-body workout 3 days a week, then I've also gotten in 3 good stretches as well, without adversely affecting my strength output. I use a similar warmup as my lifting days for a HIIT day workout, only more generalized and overall, and if I finish with a full stretch afterwards on just one of those days, that totals 4 per week, easily enough to increase overall flexibility.
I hope this is helpful to anyone considering adding some stretching to their routines.
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