What are the items and essentials of flexibility training

The core of the flexibility training we often talk about revolves around active and passive flexibility abilities. To put it bluntly, the items that can be accessed daily are dynamic stretching, static stretching, PNF stretching, as well as special flexibility modules in yoga, Pilates, and soft opening training in basic ballet training. The essentials of the movements are complex and complex, and simple and simple. The core is not to be hard, not to pursue pain, and you can’t go wrong by following the range of motion of your joints.

Speaking of which, I have seen too many people suffer from flexibility pitfalls. When I was leading a running group, I met a young girl who had just graduated. In order to practice forward bending, she would forcefully push her upper body to her legs before going to bed every day. The pain made her cry every time. She said on the Internet that "pain is what makes you flexible." As a result, she got tendonitis in the hamstrings in less than half a month. Not to mention running 5 kilometers, she even struggled to go up and down stairs.

The static stretching we are most familiar with is the kind of seated forward bend, leg press, seated angle pose, wall-opening and shoulder opening that we often practice before going to school. Many people think that the longer it takes, the better. In fact, ordinary fitness enthusiasts can hold each movement for 20-30 seconds. If professional athletes may increase it to more than 1 minute according to project requirements, ordinary people stretching for too long will cause excessive relaxation of ligaments, which will affect joint stability and make them more susceptible to injury.

Dynamic stretching is also commonly done by everyone, such as walking lunges, leg swings, shoulder circles, and thoracic spine rotations during warm-ups. You pull while moving. The most important thing to pay attention to is to slowly increase the amplitude. Don’t swing your arms and legs violently when you get up. There used to be a big brother in the gym who played badminton for three years. He would swing his hips and kick his legs every time he warmed up. As a result, he broke his hip joint last time, and he didn’t dare to touch the racket after two months of rest.

There is also PNF stretching that has a faster effect, which is the proprioceptive neuromuscular stimulation method. To put it bluntly, it is the logic of "first resist and then relax." For example, when you press your legs and someone helps you press your ankles, you first exert force to resist them for 3-5 seconds, and then relax completely and let them help you press down. This is much faster than ordinary static stretching. However, this method is controversial in the industry. Some people say it is suitable for quickly increasing the range of motion before a game. Some people say that ordinary enthusiasts without guidance are prone to straining their muscles by exerting force incorrectly. I used to test PNF shoulder opening against the wall at home. I didn’t grasp the angle of force exertion and almost stretched my rotator cuff. If you have no experience, don’t practice it by yourself.

As for programs that specialize in flexibility such as yoga and ballet, let alone watching bloggers do the splits and their waists become hard and concave easily. Many bloggers who can easily do the splits are born with loose ligaments. Most ordinary people use their waist and cervical vertebrae to compensate for the splits. In fact, they do not pull the target area at all, and they are easily injured. My best friend used to follow a short video to practice the "shoulder opening movement" of an Internet celebrity. After half a month of hard work, the cervical spine curvature straightened before the shoulders could be opened, and the pain lasted for almost a month.

Actually speaking, the core logic of flexibility training is the same. You can think of ligaments and tendons as rubber bands. When they are warm, they can be slowly stretched to lengthen them. When they are frozen and stiff, they are pulled hard or broken or loosened and unable to bounce back. Therefore, no matter what kind of flexibility training you are practicing, it is best to warm up the body first, such as jogging for 10 minutes, jumping for a few minutes, and practicing until you have a little sweat on your body. The effect is good and it is not easy to get injured.

Oh, by the way, there is another controversial point, which is whether flexibility training should be done before or after exercise. In fact, there is no absolute standard answer. If you want to improve sports performance and avoid injuries, it is enough to do 5-10 minutes of dynamic stretching before exercise, and then do static stretching to relax after exercise. If you specifically want to improve your flexibility level, do it when your body is still warm after exercise, which is most efficient.

Some people have always asked me before, "I am as hard as a stone slab, so I am born with inability to be flexible." How can this be the case? I once took care of a 42-year-old brother.