Full body 30 min passive stretching

[Timeline]

I know Coach Sommer advocates once a week 30 min of passive stretching. Does anyone have a complete routine they use? Perhaps Coach Sommer can give us some insight as to what his students do?

[sasquatch]

While stretching today, I was wondering about this, also.

[Blairbob]

if you search he has talked about bits and pieces of it. I'd have to use the search function and dig to remember any of it really.

[Richard Duelley]

I personally stretch every day. This is of course not flexibility work but general loosing up after I wake up in the morning. I do dedicated flexibility twice a week (I have tried 3 days and I just cant recover fast enough), this is aggressive and high perceived effort stretching. Its not uncommon for me to be completely drenched in sweat by the time I am finished my 30 minutes or so of flexibility work. I mostly focus on my weakest parts first (like splits for example) and then move to parts where my flexibility is better, ie I put in more work into my weakest links/flexibility movements I really want to get. I usually do my dedicated flexibility work after my workouts on Mondays and Fridays. Sometimes I switch days depending on how my workout went/time constraints but I allow at least 2 days rest in between.

I started with flexibility work 1 day a week and slowly built up my work capacity to do it 2 days a week. My goal is to build up the work capacity to work on my flexibility 3 days a week but its going to take a while.

My results have been amazing. For example, I couldn’t touch my toes while standing at the beginning of the school year and now I can place my palms flat on the floor and almost touch my head to my knees. My active flexibility has also been improving but still has a long way to go.

I hope my rambling helped

-Ricky

[Chris Hobbs]

Its not uncommon for me to be completely drenched in sweat by the time I am finished my 30 minutes or so of flexibility work.

It sounds like you have made great progress. Can you go over your flexibility routine on those days as far as how you are completing the movements?

Increased flexibility is one of the main reasons I came to this site and started with this style of training but thus far while mobility has improved a bit in shoulders and spine my lower half flexibility is nowhere near improving. Over the years I have tried yoga, pilates, standard passive stretching as taught in schools, Pavel's Relax Into Stretch concepts of waiting out the tension/PNF/etc, Bob Cooley's Resitance (aka Meridian) Stretching. The only thing that gave even marginal improvement was the last and after a smidge of improvement I stagnated again (basically I can now, just barely, touch my toes ... wehereas previously I was at mid-shin level). Anyways, with the exception of Yoga none of these has ever left me drenched in sweat, so I am very interested to hear your approach as I must just be missing something fundamental.

- Chris

[Richard Duelley]

I can try and tape some of it tomorrow. I really just give it everything I have when I stretch. I dont just let gravity pull me into the split, for example, I actively try and pull my pelvis lower to the ground. Also, make sure you thoroughly warm up before you stretch, I jump rope for example.

[Timeline]

It would be awesome to see what you do!

[Richard Duelley]

Its not going to be that spectacular I have only been training seriously for about 10 months 8)

I guess I will do it after I get back from my workout this afternoon, it ends around 7-7:30pm.

[Timeline]

Its not going to be that spectacular I have only been training seriously for about 10 months 8)

I guess I will do it after I get back from my workout this afternoon, it ends around 7-7:30pm.

Spectacular or not, it will give many an idea of what others are doing.

[Richard Duelley]

Ok, here it is. Its a 25 minute or so stretch sped up to fit in about 5 min. I did this about an hour after my workout so I was really cold even after I re-warmed up. This was also my second stretch of the day because there are a few of us that agressivly stretch out together after practice on Mondays and Fridays.

A few things I would like to point out:

I use a cheap timer I got from the grocery store that I just let run the entire time. I use it to time holds, rest periods and overall time spent stretching.

I wear socks to help me slide my splits out as much as possible. This also makes me work hard so I dont exceed my current abilities and go too far :shock:

I take deep breaths and when I exhale I try to go lower into the stretch each breath so I am constantly striving to pull lower into each position.

Sorry about the no sound but one of my roommates was being annoying and once he figured out that I was filming he kept yelling random stuff while he was in the other room.

If any one wants any parts slowed down just give me a tiem stamp and I can just upload that little part.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J4kdSuvJS1A