Active flexibility stretch for splits (on rings)

[Jonathan Nasman]

Hey guys, here's a short video I did on an active dynamic stretch I regularly do on the rings for my side and front split. I started doing it in JKD to help me improve my strength in high kicks.

I usually do about 3x5 sets with these once or twice a week. Make sure your muscles are nice and warmed up first.

Enjoy.

[Razz]

As Ido once said, it is not active, it is a loaded passive stretch. Great exercise though!

[Jonathan Nasman]

What exactly is the difference?

[Marlon]

Active flexibility is your ability to actively move part of your body into a stretched position without any outside assistance. A display of active flexibility would be lifting your leg straight as high as it can go, or doing a high kick. Passive flexibility is how far your body is actually able to move into a stretched position i.e. Sliding into splits on the floor where the force of gravity pulls your body into the position or doing a y-scale where you pull your leg into a stretched position using your arms. A loaded passive stretch (if I understand ido and razz) is a stretch where outside forces like gravity are helping to pull your body into a stretch ( as happens when you do power splits) but you resist by contracting the muscles being lengthened (like you do to control your decent and pull-out of the splits on rings).

[Cole Dano]

You got it right Marlon.

I suppose that a high kick is a momentum assisted active stretch, as most can high kick higher than they can do a pure lift.

Anyway there is so much terminology being used in stretching these days. It's good, because it helps folks understand the different possibilities. I've been doing stretching since i was a kid, i just always liked it (sadly to the detriment of my strength development, a situation which thanks to Coach Sommer, i'm patiently rectifying) I never heard of any of these different kinds of stretch techniques until recently however. Its not that i didn't do them, but never knew the labels.

The downsides to the labels are, one, sometimes people like to use them as a way of impressing others with their vast knowledge of labels, which is a fine pursuit, it just in and of itself doesn't help the questioning party. The other is that it can sometimes imply that one mode is superior to all others. And that in fact the distinctions are always 100% clear, which in practice they are not. One my find themselves using each of the modes to some degree in the same stretch, and that's ok.

For example in the above video, if the OP had a ridiculous amount of loaded flexibility and went all the way down, it would turn into a passive stretch, and if he were all the way down but still in the air, he would have to stabilize and suddenly be doing a form of PNF, tensing momentarily and releasing. Most of the time we find ourselves going thorough similar modes in a longer held stretch.

If he wanted to do an active version he could do it upside down and pull from his legs up into the splits, now that would be interesting wouldn't it?!

These comments are in no way commenting on the OPs very fine video of a demanding way of working loaded splits. Or any other posters above, they are just some thoughts that came to mind.

[Jonathan Nasman]

Thanks for the feedback Marlon and Mr. Brady! That makes a lot of sense. I guess I didn't exactly know what an active stretch was before, but it completely makes sense that it has to be unassisted by gravity. I agree that a high kick isn't quite active either. It's kind of like a ballistic stretch, no?

[Marlon]

Yes, I suppose that's true, a high kick wouldn't be quite active flexibility. Ballistic, momentum assisted, and dynamic stretches are all lumped together in my mind under the umbrella of active flexibility because if used as an exercise their purpose is to increase the range of motion you are actively able to move your body through.