My journey to flexible town

[Craig Murray]

true, Craig is just going to get people hurt, shame on u :P

Just to be clear, you should never have any significant pressure on your knees in any of these stretches, let alone pain. Pain in your knees from stretching would be a very bad sign, whatever's doing that, stop immediately.

I also concede that you guys may know more about stretching for flexibility than I do. My knowledge is mostly anicdotal, from my own experience, and what I was taught in TKD. That said, it's hard to imagine someone going from inflexible to being able to do the full splits without some pain while stretching out those tendons.

I'd certainly be anxious to hear from anyone who developed a completely flat full splits who did not endure pain and discomfort while getting there.

Also when I said pain I was really meaning significant discomfort. Real pain indicates possible injury, back off. But all the same, getting into full splits isn't going to be leisurely stretching. At least not in my experience. I could be wrong

[Andrew Sarasin]

the thing they teach us in school when i did my personally training program was that usually its until u start sweating is when u know u r warmed up. They also said 5 to 10 mins. like i said, sometimes this isnt realistic so if u stretch with no warm up be carefull and go slow. doesnt have to be an elliptical lol, could be anything, sometimes when im lazy at the gym where i work i just go in the sauna for 4-5 mins then go lift some weights lol, its a small gym so no one is in it really. And of course during that time im listening to joe rogan experience or EBR .
but the importance is getting your body warm so it can be more elastic so there's less chance of injury and your also more flexible.

How much warming up do you recommend, and how? I think I heard Rogan once say to use an elliptical until you break a good sweat and then stretch.

[Andrew Sarasin]

makes sense what u r saying. what they teach us in school they don't want us hurting the public and most of the clients r not athletes so the advice are probably a bit more conservative. I have read a book where they talk about different discomfort levels so u may be right, just like working out, the more u push yourself the better chance u have for injuring yourself and getting better results. u just dont want to create more tension so that's why static stretching and PNF stretching is recommended and not ballistic stretching.

Just to be clear, you should never have any significant pressure on your knees in any of these stretches, let alone pain. Pain in your knees from stretching would be a very bad sign, whatever's doing that, stop immediately.

I also concede that you guys may know more about stretching for flexibility than I do. My knowledge is mostly anicdotal, from my own experience, and what I was taught in TKD. That said, it's hard to imagine someone going from inflexible to being able to do the full splits without some pain while stretching out those tendons.

I'd certainly be anxious to hear from anyone who developed a completely flat full splits who did not endure pain and discomfort while getting there.

Also when I said pain I was really meaning significant discomfort. Real pain indicates possible injury, back off. But all the same, getting into full splits isn't going to be leisurely stretching. At least not in my experience. I could be wrong

[Nick Tiganis]

I have been doing hot yoga for about a month now , and I can tell ya , my flexibility has improved so much !

[apygav]

I'm going to start hot yoga asap every body has been suggesting that!

I do all of my 'Hard' stretching after class now so I am am well and truly warmed up, I'm glad to say all of my knee pain has gone - having looked into it I think it was something called runners knee (kinda like tennis elbow) just over use and repetitive strain but I'm glad to say it's cool now to the point where last night we did some partner stretching and my knees are on the floor in butterfly stretch with no pain this morning!

thanks for all the tips
10p4life!!

[MichaelReyes]

Here is a shot of my Lotus progress over the last month, slow but steady..
double lotus.JPG
double lotus2.JPG