How often to stretch?

Hui guys

I've always neglected stretching and not paid attention to flexibility, but now I'm nearing moving onto straddle press to handstand I have realised how rigid and stiff my lower body is.

I want to start stretching but amcurious as to how often I should do it and for how long?

also, what sort of stretches should I do to allow lower body felxibility?

From Kit's material all I can say is he recommend 1/2 hard sessions a week trying to increase ROM, and rest days just limbering (general stretching exercise, nothing dramatic).

I highly encourage you to get to Kit's stuff, he's the best on his field as Coach in gymnastics. Besides, gives you a theory behind stretching, and not just "this exercise for X seconds, blablabla, another, blablabla".

You have to deal with your stretching as with your trainning: intelligent!

Standing Pike Stretch - (You should probably do this one every day.)
Seated Pike Stretch
Seated Left/Right and Pancake
Left/Right/Middle Splits

Most people like to think that there's only certain magical ways of stretching, but there's not. It's pretty simple, if you want to get more flexible, then stretch. As for how long you should hold it, start off with 30-60 seconds each hold and increase as you feel necessary.

However, you still need to find what works best for you. I tried every day stretching for a while and started getting sore after like 2 weeks, so then I switched to every other day and made huge progress without being sore. Right now, I just stretch twice a week for about 30 minutes and I maintain all of my splits and stuff.

Kit's recommendation, which I follow roughly, is:

- do hard stretching 1-2 times a week (for any given muscle group). These are sessions where you're trying to actively improve on your range of motion. 

- do light stretching, aka 'limbering' daily or close to it. In these sessions, your goal is simply to move into and through ranges of motion that you have already mastered.

I would highly recommend looking more into his stuff. He's got a book, and while it's pretty expensive (~$100 USD for book + int'l shipping) I thought it was worth it. He also has a lot of free info on his youtube channels, and has some cheap digital downloads on his site that go over basic stretching theory and a couple of useful exercises. 

Personally I've just started stretching fairly hard 4 times a week, after my F1 workouts.  I'm only stretching each muscle/movement for one set, but I'm doing it as long as I need to to get comfortable, and pushing the ROM at the end.  I'm not hanging out for ages, it's a rapid escalation to my end ROM.

I can't say that I'm not going to injure myself doing this, but my progress has been very quick.  So far I've been dealing with DOMS in my hamstrings, as well as some iffy feelings in my hip flexors.  If I feel like I'm going to hurt myself, I'll back off.  The trick (I feel) is to listen to your body.  That's how I know how long to hold a stretch for, and how deep into the ROM I can go.  This comes with experience, but it's fairly intuitive.

Shia said:

Also, what sort of stretches should I do to allow lower body flexibility?

The only stretches I've been doing (apart from F1+H1 mobility work) are a floor german hang, the yoga pose lord of the fishes, butterfly, seated pike and reclining hero.  I'm doing these progressively, so after I can achieve full ROM on butterfly and seated pike without any discomfort, I'll work on pancakes.  Only after I've achieved a full pancake will I work on seated leg lifts and splits.  I feel it's best to concentrate fully on mastering the basics before moving on to more difficult positions.  (Hmm, where have I heard that before?)