cold flexibility?

[frozenpeon]

Any tip on improving my cold flexibility?

When I start stretching for the sidesplit, I'm at 90 degrees and I end up about 15 cm of the ground at the end of my routine. My cold flexibility doesn't seem to improve on my sidesplit, but it does improve on my frontsplit.

[Dobi]

i have the same "problem".
we can just try to build more strength in the stretches position via isometrics and hope that our cold sidesplitflexibility will improve

[Birch]

You just need to get good, theres no secret to it. The moar flexibility you have well... the more you have. So if you improve your warm shit then your cold shit gets better too.

[Graber]

Yea I just think if u stretch good and serious blablaBLA!!!!!!! u will need just to continue it time the cold flexibility will improve.

[Dobi]

you have insanely short legs in your avatar, graber. how tall are you?

[Frostbite]

ahah yeah i was thinking the same thing

[skywalker]

Lol he's also got an insanely thin head and arms............. :wink:

My cold split is about as crap as yours frozenpeon. I think it's partly to do with diet. For instance if you're not hydrated it can really affect your flexibility, but when warm you might not have the same instinct of pain or tightning so it's easier.

Try and stay fully hydrated, and remember to eat those natural vitamins :D

[Ashtar]

You just need to get good, theres no secret to it. The moar flexibility you have well... the more you have. So if you improve your warm shit then your cold shit gets better too.
Birch is right! It also might have something to do with how frequently you practise it or how long you hold it, who knows.

[frozenpeon]

What about stretching in the morning? Does it helps?

i have the same "problem".
we can just try to build more strength in the stretches position via isometrics and hope that our cold sidesplitflexibility will improve

By isometric, do you mean isometric stretch or isometric for strength? Also, are you talking about adductors or abductor strength?

[Papa Lazarou]

Dynamic stretching in the morning gives you better cold flexibility during the day.

[Dobi]

By isometric, do you mean isometric stretch or isometric for strength? Also, are you talking about adductors or abductor strength?
isometric stretching like suspended splits with weigth or shit like that :wink:
but active flexibility (abductor strength) could also be beneficial i guess.

[Ville]

Train your leg muscles a little time (about 10 minutes),then try to land for standing spagat (stand,stretch your legs aside you for spagat).

[short gorilla]

Develop strength throughout the entire range of motion. Use isometrics.

[Graber]

What? Man I am 185 cm (6 foot 1). I don't have short legs. Maybe that avatar has a problem because I made a smaller pic from a big one <resize> to be ok for TT.

[-spinxy-]

I found that when I started stretching my front splits cold every night before I go to bed my flexibility improved so much. I was already very flexible to begin with and felt I'd kind of reached a plateau with it but this helped me push it further.

Just make sure once you've stretched each leg you work it by kicking hard and fast several times with whatever kind of kick is appropriate to what you have stretched. e.g if you've just stretched a left leg fron split, do about 20 axe kicks immediately after as fast and as hard as you can can. I never used to do this but found that once I did my flexibility improved dramatically.

[Graber]

Man I dld "Bill Superfoot Wallace Stretching" movie, I will watch it now, apears to be old...

[Ashtar]

Dynamic stretching in the morning gives you better cold flexibility during the day.
Dynamic stretching can warm you up, is that why?

[Dobi]

kurz writes that dynamics in the morning "reset" your cns so you stay more flexible throughout the day.

[Graber]

Ok "Bill Superfoot Wallace Stretching" movie tells ya to worm up first (never start stretching without worm up) and then is showing u some stretching exercices, but I dint understood how much time u should hold them he was doing 3x of a few seconds, I dint sow there any method of isometrics, he also tells ya about stretching with a partener and in the end he is using a strething machine.
That guy is good with splits specialy with Side Split and his Front Splits I didnt so anything special.
Some of the stretches that he is using in there I was already doing them...

Tom Kurz in his movie is recomands to do first work out with weights for your legs to improve the streght even if most of the ppl will be able to do stretching exercices without work out.

I think the movies are kind of useless, u can do something good with your own methods.

[Papa Lazarou]

Just make sure once you've stretched each leg you work it by kicking hard and fast several times with whatever kind of kick is appropriate to what you have stretched. e.g if you've just stretched a left leg fron split, do about 20 axe kicks immediately after as fast and as hard as you can can. I never used to do this but found that once I did my flexibility improved dramatically.

That sounds pretty dangerous to me. If you suffered no ill effects you might be a lucky one.

As far as I know, even light static stretching causes slight damage to your muscles, as well as reducing coordination, relaxing you, and increasing pain tolerance. Following this with what sounds like ballistic stretching seems like a bad idea to me. Even if you don't injure yourself, you could easily be screwing with your tendons and other connective tissue in the long term.


And to graber:
One reason for researching good (in Kurz's case, scientific) stretching methods is safety. Lots of people find ballistic stretching intuitive for instance, but using ballistic stretches is dangerous and gives slow progress. Others put a lot of back bending into hamstring stretches, and that can screw with ligaments and so on.

Using tested methods generally means safety and potentially MUCH faster results. Some spend many hours stretching each day, when they could make the same or better progress in half the time.

[Ashtar]

Kurz talks about strengthening the muscles a lot. While you could do that with isometrics, using weights is a lot more scientific since you can make measurements, they do not rely on intuition of perceived exertion.

[Graber]

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/4722/01010002yy2.jpg look cold flexibilty, no worm up or stretch.

[Dobi]

Graber you are the most flexible person in the world.
and you are a gread guy, everybody loves you.
you have the longest schwengel of all man and we all thank god every day that you came to this forum to make our lives better.

[Augenatic]

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/4722/01010002yy2.jpg look cold flexibilty, no worm up or stretch.

Holy shit zomg wtf graber you own so fucking much man

[frozenpeon]

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/4722/01010002yy2.jpg look cold flexibilty, no worm up or stretch.

We don't care about you...

[Graber]

???Speack for yourself kid.!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Ashtar]

So I notice one of the edges of your textbook is bent. Put something heavy on it for a while to fix that. Respect the books.

[Vincent_Lee]

You just need to get good, theres no secret to it. The moar flexibility you have well... the more you have. So if you improve your warm shit then your cold shit gets better too.

what type of " Shit " are we talking about, btw; can you be " to young " to be doing splits? i am 15 years old and i can do cold front-splits.:shocked:

[Papa Lazarou]

I don't think you're too young. Assuming you aren't stretching your ligaments and so on, and aren't using isometric stretches.

It's safest to stretch when you're warmed up - the systems can cope better and so you're less likely to injure yourself. But that doesn't mean that it's unsafe to stretch cold. Relaxed stretches are fine to do when cold for instance.

As long as you avoid pain, don't use isometrics, and don't hold odd positions for long periods of time, you should be fine.

[Ashtar]

If properly abiding by the 'avoid pain' idea, isometrics are fine. Stretching is all about holding odd positions for long periods of time, with the intent of being able to enter an ever odder position. How long is 'long'? Some people do stretch very long. It just might be more worth it to be more attentive, or do multiple sessions, or focus on other activities.

[Papa Lazarou]

Yeah I was a bit vague.

By "long" I meant like 20 minutes and longer in a single stretch. My reason is safety - same with the isometrics. I suspect long stretches risk injury and I know certain positions aren't that great on ligaments. Shorter stretching minimises risk of injury, permanent harm and other possible negatives (screwing with connective tissue and the like). You can make fast progress (maybe fastest?) with short sessions.

As for isometrics, I've read (in Kurz's book) that intense isometric contraction can be risky for developing bones. His stuff seems well evidenced so I'll stick with him on that. It makes sense to me too, given what I know about muscle attachments. The risk of deformation may be small, but I wouldn't take it. Especially since isometrics only really save time.

[Ashtar]

How long it is safe to do them probably depends on the load the stretched muscles are under. The split exercises are going to be something more stressful (due to bearing your weight) than lying on your back and pulling your leg up, for example. Session shortness isn't a stand-in for attentiveness, the intuition and paying attention to how a stretch feels is probably more important for minimizing injury/harm.

I still have to read Kurz' book, but just remaining standing is an isometric contraction. Statements like "dangerous to bones and muscle attachments" can apply to all muscle contractions in youths, not just isometric ones. They all pull on the attachments after all. The key seems to be to not overdo it, and if you're beginning to get deformed you're probably overdoing it and it's probably painful.

I'm thinking he said that because he knows youths are more reckless and often fall into "no pain no gain" traps, and have less sensibility to hold back due to the fire of youthful enthusiasm. A lot of trainers will push kids too hard because they think they're lazy, and end up hurting them. So making a statement like that will teach them to be careful. Trainers take kids' fast rate of healing for granted like you see in china with gets getting forced into splits, or with the circus contortionists.

Like if you're training the splits, you're not going to be able to avoid an isometric contraction, it's what's holding you up. To me, odds are that you're less likely to get deformed by actively isometrically contraction against the ground when your legs form a 90degree angle, in comparison to the passive contraction that's just enough to hold you up when you're at 170degrees. It'd probably help protect you. They just shouldn't do maximal isometrics in weak positions, train harder in safer ranges.

[Vincent_Lee]

Well, i rarely get pains, and i allways stretch wormed up, i run atleast 2KM so i am nice and warm in the leg joints. But in the rare cases i do feel pain, i ease off and return to the same position only slower and more gently, altho i would not reccoment that, at one time i "over"stretched my right leg, the tendon shrunk by a few inches, like a negative stretch or whatever, huge setback.. :ouch:

[frozenpeon]

I started using isometric to develop strength in the enire range of motion and I can already see some improvement. My cold sidesplit is at 100-110 degrees instead of 90 YEAAAAH I'M FLYIN.