Rest And Flexibility.

[Idle-]

So by my own will power I wanted to get the full splits. And after 6months of stretching im pretty much flat on the ground in all my splits( after a good warm up and some light stretching).

 

 

I was wondering how many days of the week should I rest  and how many stretch? And when I stretch should I stretch to max and push it hard each workout? And this one has been bugging me the most, I do my leg training and hard stretching on the same day so that I can rest on the same day, but sometimes my legs stay sorer from the weight training and im still sore 48hours later. The question is should I try to stretch those sore muscle hard and stick to my routine or should I wait another day and restart?

 

Thanks.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

On one hand you get the splits in 6 months following your own idea of when & how to stretch; this is a great result... on the other hand you ask us how to do it... I am scratching my head...

Why don't you share with us how you got there?

[Tavis G]

Yes i agree with FredInChina. Please tell us how you got there. I also find my legs can become sore from stretching too.

[Idle-]

Hahaha ok. I took Karate for 6 years so my flexibility never was aloud to get "Omg Im so stiff" bad,but I never got my full split either or was that flexibile.  But after getting my blackbelt and school becoming more intense I had to stop going 2 times a week and cut back to 2 or 3 a month.

 

After a while I started to notice my flexilibity was getting bad, touching my toes became harder and harder and I didnt even try the splits. So I decided to start stretching again around june 2012.

 

So went out and got myself a yoga book. I think this was a good first move by me even though I didnt know it at the time. It helped me devolp a good starting point and gave better overall flexibility. After doing that for about a month and a half I went into more specific stretches, normally 3 sets of each stretch held for 30 to 60secs. Some times up to 2 min for my hamstrings cause they took awhile to relax. I did alot of pike stretches and ALOT of half side split stretches to warm for my split atempt. I would try doing the splits for like 10 short 10-20sec holds but then I learned it was better to hold for longer so I tried to go for 30 and 60sec, which is hard for a beginner! Then I bought a copy of Stretching Scientifically By Thomas Kurz.

 

I wish I had saved the money though cause with research you can find all the info in the book online. Then I started isometric stretching, just doing a few times week and really saw good progress. And here I am! The question I had though is that whole time I stretching I was not strength training my legs. I have just started and was wondering how to balance it with my stretching? Cause I find when I stretch my sore leg muscle from weight training I cant go as low and it just flat out hurts more.

 

Thanks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[u3er]

The question I had though is that whole time I stretching I was not strength training my legs. I have just started and was wondering how to balance it with my stretching? Cause I find when I stretch my sore leg muscle from weight training I cant go as low and it just flat out hurts more.

 

I too am very curious about this, as I find that leg work quickly destroys my flexibility gains!  I have also been working hard on my leg flexibility and like the OP have had to drop all leg work to accommodate this goal.  Any advice from the crowd on how to simultaneously work strength and flexibility? 

 

[u3er]

That last post mixed up the quote for some reason....  My response is the second paragraph.

[FREDERIC DUPONT]

I find that interesting, because when I do loaded squats, dead lifts or quad press, my hips & hammies flexibility improves vastly.