Huge flexibility imbalances

Hi,

I'm a 38-year old guy with some massive flexibility imbalances.

I've led a mostly sedentary life, punctuated by spurts of weight-training and (more recently) Olympic lifting and Crossfit. 

The latter in particular have highlighted these deficiencies and imbalances.

• I can comfortably drop into a perfect full squat but can't pike to save my life; as soon as my upper body gets to about 45 degrees from vertical I lose the anterior pelvic tilt.
• Similarly, I can easily Skin the Cat but have virtually non-existent shoulder flexion and T-spine mobility; I can't raise straight arms above my head without severely compensating in the lumbar region.

I have no injuries or anatomical abnormalities (aside from flat feet) and have seen a Sports physio to rule out anything unusual.

Now I recently started the Foundation 1 course and the Stretch series.

I understand that Coach Sommer doesn't advocate performing any of the stretch routines more than once a week but are there any specific, targeted stretches that I can perform on a more regular basis (perhaps even daily?) to address these flexibility imbalances?

Regards,

Kaveh

Hey Kaveh,

We are glad to see your eagerness to improve your flexibility. Since you just started Foundation One and the Stretch series recently, I would recommend sticking to your schedule.

After a 6 weeks or so you will begin to find that certain exercises are noticeably more challenging than others. These are the exercises to incorporate daily.

For example, if you are struggling with shoulder flexion, then I would benefit from incorporating Throcacic bridge progressions into your daily routine.

Also the Handstand program will address your shoulders very beautifully  :-) 

Thanks so much for the advice, guys!

On 12/4/2017 at 5:46 PM, Kaveh Beyk said:

Thanks so much for the advice, guys!

Anytime! If you need any advice, feel free to reach out on the forum. We’re always happy to help.