Forums » Flexibility
Stretching Schedule
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Hey guys,
Thought I'd kick things off here by sharing my stretching schedule, which has been really beneficial. I'm sure most of you guys will be more into flexibility than I have ever been, so any tips would be welcome :)
In the past, I've never taken stretching seriously, but was inspired to do so by the Tapp brothers (of Parkour fame). Following their suggested schedule, I'm getting pretty close to front splits, even though I've only been using it for three or four weeks.
I'm following the Charlie Francis high/low model for my speed training block, so have been aligning my stretching high days with my speed high days.
Cheers,
Amanda
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Thanks for putting it up Amanda looking forward to being able to test it out. I do a Korean martial art which involves a lot of kicks, jumping and body control so we do quite a bit of stretching. I little tip is just to do a light warm up before stretching as it helps with loosening the muscles. Also, i know people don't have the time to do this but it is recommended that each stretch is actually held for 5 minutes. I was testing it out the other day and you feel quite light. My personal favourite of the stretches though has to be Ballistic and Static :D -
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Well I may be wrong but I think one of the main purposes of a warm up is to reduce the risk of injury. So it won't really effect your workout in anyway. However, be aware that some studies have shown that if you are doing lots of static stretches and holding them for I while in your warm up, it can lead to a decreased performance. But I think the bottom line is, if you don't do a proper warm up, just be a bit more careful and try not to stretch too much or you could injure yourself. Hope this helps :) -
Warm up is IMPORTANT! If you dont have time, before you workout, make sure you wear a sweat shirt. If your walking to the gym, do arm circles, high knees (yes you will look goofy!), but if your truly lacking time like that, then I'd rather have you look goofy then get an injury as a result of not having time to warm up. I generally do static stretches after dynamic stretches warm ups
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At my martial arts I was doing an instructors belt before I had a back injury but it was my Job to warm up each session, I had anywhere between 5-10 minutes to do it before the senior instructors came out. We just started with straight up stretch kicks, then straight up kicks to the side (trying to touch shoulder with same sided knee). Following that we would do 2 sets of slow lunges (sometimes with a stretch kick on the way up) then i would finally move into flexibility for the final few minutes. We we start off with the main leg muscles, then i would train them the way as if to do the splits. Following was just a few arm circles and star jumps. Pretty basic warm up, if you have more time i advise small 10-15 metre jogs for about 3-4 minutes and trying to stretch each muscle for about 30 seconds.
Just something extra, they say to stretch the muscle for 5 minutes because after the first minute it has expanded so you can then apply more pressure. I generally stretch whilst watching TV, there may be a 30 minutes TV show so i will do 3 different kinds of stretches, on both sides. Hope i may have given some ideas! -
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Oh well if it's just a stretching workout I think it's critically important to be properly warmed up first. First of all it means you have much less chance of getting an injury. Also, I will increase your flexibility as your muscles will have more blood and oxygen to them so they are more elastic meaning you can stretch further, therefore increasing your flexibility more than if you didn't warm up. Hope this helped :)