Introduction
The ability to reach a certain flexibility level is just like anything else, it takes time and effort but one should not accept their current level of mobility as certainty. It is something that can be improved. What I recommend is establishing a good habit of starting each day with a stretching routine, stretching before you exercise, and stretching before you go to sleep at night. These segments can be brief but should be intentional by putting your mind and breathing into the muscle of intended stretch. I will walk you through what my routine looks like and the execution of what has worked for me. I will also have different leveled markers to keep everyone safe, yet allowing the right amount of challenge to improve their current status.
To provide an internal understanding of what constitutes flexibility, I will break down how the muscles of intended stretch react when you place a stimulus in hopes to increase that specific range of motion. In essence, muscles are not designed to allow for stretching, meaning the sole job for a muscle is to contract, to shorten and not lengthen. You are going completely against the nature of what skeletal muscle tissues were designed to do when stretching. That feeling of tightness, or hitting a threshold where your muscles won’t allow you to go, is the human safety mechanism encoded into the muscles. You have to outsmart your own human nature through relaxation, breathing, and being present with the muscles of indented stretch by placing your mind in the muscles, signaling compassion for each and every stretching muscle fiber. Two mechanisms take place when stretching, Autonomic Inhibition, where the muscles of intended stretch tighten up to prevent injury, and Reciprocal Inhibition, where the opposing muscles of intended stretch tightens up to prevent injury. As previously mentioned, muscles only exist to shorten and not to lengthen, so when you stretch a muscle, the automatic response is to tighten up. Hence, the name Autonomic Inhibition means you have to navigate through these human nature patterns to gain progression through the program, which I will explain. Muscles also work in pairs, think of your arm, the bicep contracts and shortens, bending your arm closer to your body, it then relaxes and your tricep contracts and shortens, extending your arm away from your body. This is exactly how muscles move your skeleton. Reciprocal Inhibition is when the intended muscle of stretch kicks in on its resistance to the stretch, and the opposing muscle relaxes to prevent injury. In order to maximize the benefits of stretching, you must work to override this human nature response.
In order to make sure your body is not resisting or fighting against what you are trying to accomplish you must learn to mentally place your focus on the muscle of intended stretch by offsetting your body weight to a different set of muscles. When you are stretching a leg, you want to use your upper body or your other leg that is not the intended muscle of stretch to maintain your body weight while you are relaxing. It is important to make sure that the intended muscle of stretch is not activating the above mechanism as that will only slow your progress. During the initial stages of developing a stretching sequence, I will use my hands to feel the muscle of focus to really help me place my attention on the muscle and train it to relax. Breathing is also a good tool to use while stretching and is a great timing gage. Ideally you want to hold the stretches for 20-30 seconds, so I will just take just 2 or 3 long inhales and exhales to be my timing gage. Another good strategy is to use your other limbs to hold the intended limb of stretch in place, preventing it from coming back towards your body's midline which will naturally try to happen when you deepen any stretch. For example, if you are doing a basic hurdler stretch with one leg bent backwards behind you and the other straight out in front of you, you want to use your hands to hold the leg in place as you lower towards the leg. Applying this method will ensure that the limb is isolated in place in order to maximize the stretch and help you physically feel your limb starting to resist.
Personally, my morning stretching routine only takes about 15 minutes and the routine I do prior to jiu jitsu is approximately 30 mins. I will pick and choose the appropriate blocks of stretching based on what muscles I will be using for my exercise that day. I always recommend doing some sort of “warm up” for the purpose of increasing blood flow and body temperature which will aid the muscles in preparation. A warm up as little as 50 jumping jacks or 10 burpees will suffice.
