Mobility progress

Hey everybody. I have been doing GST for a year now and am very impressed with my strength gains and upper body mobility gains, but I haven't seen the same gains in lower body mobility. I have been doing foundation, handstand and all 3 stretch series. I was and am still very tight in the quads and hamstrings, and still have low back pain.  When I started I could touch the floor barely after deeply sinking to to stretch and I can now touch the floor cold and just palm it after doing the front split video. Also, I have not seen much improvement in the the front split with shin up the wall. Middle split is a bit better, but I was hoping to be further along, especially since my shoulder extension and bridge have really improved. 

I am am wondering how long it should take to get chest down to level or to the floor in pancake and straddle, and how long to achieve middle split, or even something resembling a middle split?

thanks

Devin

Hey Devin,

Really great to hear about your progress thus far. It sounds like you're staying consistent with your training! When it comes to increasing range of motion, passive or active, there is no way to gauge how long it will take to reach a goal or master a position. There are simply too many factors at play including individual anatomy, your ROM upon starting, your activities, recovery (sleep, stress, etc.), and much more. Progress is not always linear and some areas of strength and mobility will simply take longer to develop than others. That is true for everyone. 

Now, that said, adding in shorter holds of those stubborn stretches you mentioned from FS to your daily limber routine will help you accelerate progress a bit. If you don't have a daily limber going yet, this is a great time to begin. The Fundamentals Course has an excellent example limber so if you own that course, just add a few stretches to the end of that sequence. Putting together a limber is simple, though, and is easily personalized. Just move through some basic stretches and mobility exercises that you know need some work. Don't push it hard at all and only spend only a brief amount of time in each position. With limbering, think consistency, not intensity. 

On 7/22/2017 at 1:38 AM, Everett Carroll said:

If you don't have a daily limber going yet, this is a great time to begin.

Coach Everett,

What is a daily limber? Is that the same as a short stretch to get the muscles and ligaments loose before an exercise? 

If this is true, is it alright for me to do some of these stretches more than once a week? I had a similar question to Devin. I am super tight in some areas, and I was wanting to do certain stretches more than once a week, but I was under the impression from the video that we weren't supposed to do the stretches more than once a week. Of course, I could have misunderstood. Perhaps, Coach Summers meant that we shouldn't do the whole stretch series (which is 45 minutes long) more than once a week. To be honest, I am already doing three stretch series a week, and I really don't want to do any of them more than once anyway because they are hard, painful, and time consuming. But there are certain stretches that I really want to improve in and practice more than once a week. 

Hi Bobby,

Thanks for reaching out.

Everett is referring to the daily limber routine from the Fundamentals course. This is a great routine to do daily and can be used as a warm up. As he mentioned above, you may also create your own limbering routine. You can pick some of the stretches you are having difficulties with and perform them a couple times a week with less intensity than you would do when doing the entire series. 

The limbering routine from the Fundamentals course is pretty short, and the daily lessons are a great way to assess your body and discover weaknesses and imbalances before moving on to more advanced courses. It'll also give you a great idea of how to build up your own limbering routine