Passive stretching

I appreciate the stretch series are intended to be performed once a week. Having been doing them for a few weeks now, I'm finding I'm pretty beat up and wouldn't want to them any more frequently. However, some elements, e.g MSs/pe22, I feel I could do more frequently and could hold for longer periods at a slightly less than maximal intensity, such as while reading a book. Would there be any value to incorporating some longer passive holds into my downtime, or will this detract from the more focused stretch sessions?

Good thinking. Shouldn't be a problem at all.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I've though about this too. How long are you planning to hold them?

Stephen M said:

I've though about this too. How long are you planning to hold them?

Not very helpful, but as long as I'm comfortable with on any given occasion. Probably start with around 5 minutes and try to build it up a bit over time. Not really coming at it with any specific goal, more just to spend time in a variety of positions, rather than spending too much time seated, so I'll mix in positions such as standing, bottom of a squat, seiza, middle split on wall, frog stand and maybe some yoga poses such as hero and pigeon pose as well.

Unfortunately, I can't really come up with any ideas to work on my more problematic areas, namely hip flexors and lumbar/thoracic flexion. Can't really see myself hanging out in vertical lunge anytime soon. Butterfly maybe.

Just reading your book on your stomach will be a nice sub maximal stretch for that.

Richard Gould said:

... Unfortunately, I can't really come up with any ideas to work on my more problematic areas, namely hip flexors and lumbar/thoracic flexion. Can't really see myself hanging out in vertical lunge anytime soon. Butterfly maybe ...

 

 

Simply select some of the hip flexor and thoracic stretches from the Front Split and Thoracic Bridge series.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

I increased my squat ROM by doing sub maximal stretching. It works well for me and mentally I find it refreshing!

Coach Sommer said:

Simply select some of the hip flexor and thoracic stretches from the Front Split and Thoracic Bridge series.

Yours in Fitness,

Coach Sommer

After a week of doing daily 5-10 minute middle splits on the wall, I did the MS series yesterday and felt an enormous improvement. Was able to complete 10 reps of pancake roll throughs for the first time. Previously best I'd managed was 5. And just felt a lot smoother in all the pancake work.

On 8/4/2015 at 2:08 PM, David Beckerman said:

I increased my squat ROM by doing sub maximal stretching. It works well for me and mentally I find it refreshing!

what stretch did you do ?

I positioned myself in the squat laying on my back with my feet on the wall. I could sit in that position for quite awhile. I combined that with working my squats normally. 

SLS progressions helped too

yesterday i had an idea for a similar stretch. take your exercise ball and position yourself on it with your back (middle to upper back, depending on intensity of the stretch), squatting with your feet on the wall. you can roll with the ball slowly into the stretch, with your elbows you can gently push your knees/legs apart, if you like. through the form of the ball your back will be automatically slightly anterior. can be intense.

thank you all