Flexibility training should be done at least several times a week

The current consensus in the field of sports science and fitness practice is that flexibility training for ordinary healthy people can be arranged at least 2 to 3 times a week. If there are special sports needs, or groups with poor joint mobility and rehabilitation needs, the frequency can be increased to 4 to 5 times a week or even short-term exercises every day.

You may be wondering, why is it not an accurate number? There is no one-size-fits-all standard for this matter, and the understanding of different circles is quite different. A while ago, I helped a student change his training plan. In order to do horizontal splits, he followed an online yoga blogger to press his legs every day. Every time he pressed his legs, he was sweating. After persisting for a month and a half, not only did the splits not go down, but the inside of his knees still hurt. He came over and asked me if the frequency of practice was not enough. You see, this is a typical example of blindly chasing high frequency without understanding your own needs.

The view of traditional exercise physiology is actually very clear: Flexibility is essentially an adaptive quality of muscles, tendons and connective tissues. It relies on built-in receptors such as muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs to slowly adapt to stretch stimulation. As long as each stretch can maintain an effective stretch sensation for about 30 seconds, repeat 2 to 3 sets of each part, and stimulation 2 to 3 times a week is enough to maintain basic joint mobility. There is no need to toss every day. The guys who practice powerlifting in the gym where I usually stay are an example. They usually squat and pull heavy weights that can scare novices. Flexibility training is really just 10 minutes of leg and hand exercises after each exercise. It is enough to do it twice a week. The range of squatting at the bottom is still enough. No one is stuck with the weight or injured due to lack of flexibility.

But if you ask a functional trainer or a coach specializing in ballet or gymnastics, they will most likely give you a different answer. They prefer the logic of "use it or lose it", especially now that most people sit for eight or nine hours a day. The iliopsoas muscle is shortened and the hamstring muscle is stretched for a long time and is in a state of tension. A total of 20 minutes of stretching twice a week cannot offset the impact of sitting for a whole day on the soft tissue. Instead, it is better to take three to five minutes a day, sit at the work station to pull the hamstring muscles, stand to expand the chest and pull the shoulders. Small and frequent stimulation effects are better. I have a friend who does rehabilitation. He prescribes a rehabilitation plan for patients who have passed the acute phase of lumbar protrusion. He is to do 10 minutes of low-intensity hip stretching three times a day. After two months of persistence, most people can relieve a lot of pain when bending over to pick things up. If this is done twice a week, the rehabilitation effect will definitely not be achieved.

To be honest, before worrying about how many times to practice every week, it is better to figure out what you want first. If you are an ordinary office worker who occasionally goes for a run or lifts weights, and does not have any special needs like lowering your waist or doing the splits, you really can’t afford to spend time every day practicing flexibility. After strength training every week, you can do hand pulls for 10 minutes, which is enough for 2 to 3 times. The extra 10 minutes of sleep you save is better than holding on to leg presses. If your shoulders are so stiff that you can't lift them, or you want to practice advanced yoga moves, or you need a more stretched posture in preparation for a competition, it's not too late to increase the frequency. However, be careful not to press hard as soon as you start, and stop stretching until you feel a slight stretch. If you grimace in pain, there is a high probability that you will be injured.

Oh, by the way, there is another trivia that many people don’t know: In fact, flexibility can be divided into dynamic and static. The dynamic stretches such as walking lunges and arm circles that you usually do before running are also part of flexibility training. If you run three times a week and do 5 minutes of dynamic stretching every time you warm up, you have already reached the standard. There is no need to worry about whether to arrange a special "flexibility training day". In the final analysis, frequency has never been the core criterion for flexibility training. Whether you can find the right stretch feeling, whether you can avoid pain, and whether you can persist for a long time is much more important than whether you practice twice or five times a week.