I would be greatful if Tim or anyone else could help me with a few questions I have. I have be practicing Zhan Zhuang, Taijiquan for around 7 years and Baguazhang for a little over 1 year. While practicing all this, I haven't practiced much separate stretching excercises and with all the stance trainning/form work, I feel that my Hamstrings have become really tight and inflexible. I am currently trainning to fight in San Da competitions in Hong Kong and want to get alot more flexible. My questions are, will stretching reduce or increase power in the legs? Should I take a break from stance trainning while trying to become more flexible? Is there anything I should watch out for, to do and not to do, while stretching? How much time every day should I set aside for stretching? And lastly, how much flexiblity do you recomend, e.i. being able to kick head height without feeling any tention?

Apologies for the large volume of questions, but I would really appreciate any tips Tim or anyone else could give.

Thanks,
Craig

Do very light stretching in the morning. Tim advocates a four-way back/hamstring stretch that consists of backward leaning stretch (bend backwards, look at ceiling and hold to loosen lower back and stomach), followed by a forward leaning stretch (hamstring), followed by a side to side forward leaning stretch (also hamsting but includes ITB band and attendant muscles), followed by a stand up side to side leaning stretch (sides of stomach). He leads us through the exercise three or four times, holding each gentile stretch for 15 seconds or so.

Make sure you do not over-stretch in one session as you can pull muscles and do damage. Just gently hit your limit and hold (don't bounce). Repeat each stretch a few times. Do not stretch to point of pain. You can save more aggressive stretching for when you're very warmed up or after you've done it for a few months. Do it several times a day.

Stretching will not decrease power unless you injure the required muscles. Exercise and stretch and seat and rest well. You will be Champion...

Correct me if I'm wrong.

BTW I too have tight hamstrings and the above provided information is what I would do if I was a real man. I usually just touch the tows and drink a few beers.

Also do the regular stretches.

"gentile stretch"??? what stretches do you recommend for Jews?

Willard,

Thanks alot for the tips, I was worried that I was over srtetching or being too aggressive about it.

If you want more flexibility for "movement", then you need to "move". Static stretching will not effect a "dynamic" movement as much as "dynamic" stretching and "mobility" drills. Most people kick high because..."they kick high".

If you have a particular trouble spot, then static "PNF" stretching is best for recovery.

You should always been your "dynamic" training with "dynamic" stretching or "mobility" drills, and conclude your session with passive static stretching. The bonus of mobility drills is they they also add strength to your range of motion.

Most people are confused by what flexibility really is. Real flexibility in sport or combat consist of strength, balance, coordination, agility and dynamic mobility. It's not a "static" linear exhibition.

If you do something that requires "tension", you must abate that "tension" with easy movement.

Backarcher,

Thanks for you tips.

This is from an article I wrote a few months ago:

Yoga for Grappling?

Recently, there has been a lot of talk about "yoga for grappling". While I think it's a great idea, I'm not sure people understand yoga for grappling.

Let me begin by restating my love for yoga. Yoga truly saved my physical life. I have arthritis in my lumbar, thoracic and cervical spine. I was destine of most likely being confined to a wheelchair by 60 years of age, yet I found yoga just in time to recognize this spinal emergency and begin to create space between my vertebrae.

For a grappler, vinyasa style yoga like Ashtanga, Viniyoga and Jivamukti and a dynamic yoga like Kundalini can help a grappler learn to breathe more efficiently during movement. Even static yoga like Iyengar, Bikram and Sivananda can challenge your isometric strength and give you more muscular endurance. They all activate the "core" regions of your body. And just like any form of static stretching, yoga can assist in recovery, if done after your normal workout. They all can increase your static range of motion…but grappling requires an exploration of your dynamic range of motion. Research has shown no correlations between static flexibility and dynamic movements.

What yoga can give any athlete is muscular endurance. The ability to raise up in the guard time and time again without having your legs drained, the ability to wrestle in the clinch without having your legs give, for any good clinch grappler knows knowing how to use your legs to pressure is essential. When I first started boxing, 20 years ago and up until about five years ago, my upper body would tire. That’s not a problem now, for powerful yoga arm-balances have given me a healthy dose of muscular endurance.

The most essential thing, specifically Power Yoga, can give a grappler is the knowledge of how to use your breath in a dynamic and unpredictable sphere.

But, I do have a problem with claims that any of the above methods of hatha yoga can be specialized for the needs of grapplers…specifically. Why? Well, if we are talking about "yoga for grappling" than entails SPP training or Specific Physical Preparedness. That means the movement, structure and breathing methods of the yogi would have to resemble the "form" of a grappler as he grapples.

I've been grappling since pre-puberty and I never remember doing any 'robot-grappling.' What does that mean? That means I do not grapple linearly or in a straight line. I twist, turn, and rotate in six dimensions. I have to breathe efficiently when I'm curled up in a ball, when I'm rolling over my shoulders and when my body is moving non-linearly. When I execute my infamous "low single", I move my body forward in an arc as I change levels and slide to the side and behind my opponent. I must be conscious of my body alignment during this unorthodox transition. Moreover, when I launch my deadly suplex, I pop my hips, lift, arch and turn. (Coach Sonnon's Multi-planar back arch??)


Yoga is an excellent source of training for the grappler, but on the Training Hierarchy Pyramid (Clubbell Training For Circular Strength) it would fall only at the base level of GPP or General Physical Preparedness. But what I find most interesting is that yoga could possible COMPETE with your performance and drain you of needed energy during play. How? I'll show you!

Neuromuscularly, your body adapts to dominant movement patterns. If your body is only accustomed to moving linearly, then once it gets "off-track"(and in grappling, you will get off-track) it's going to take an extra amount of energy to get it back "on-track". Moreover, if you are missing strength or flexibility within the range of that recovery motion an injury is just waiting to happen.

If there were ever such a thing as "Yoga for grappling", the yoga asanas…would not be asanas or positions. They would be "points" in which you move through, for grappling is all about movement. Furthermore, the yoga "points" would look like frames of movement a grappler might find him/herself moving through in an actual grappling encounter. You could probably "cut and paste" pictures of grapplers doing this "yoga for grappling" together to make grappling comic book, for it would look like a real grappling match in action. Lastly, this "yoga for grappling" would look like natural movements of grapplers, but more sophisticated or enhance, for progression demands training outside the normal ranges of motion.

I think that right now the fastest way to flexibilty is the "CRAC" formula. It's what physical therapist are doing.

C - Contract: stretch your hamstring to the point where you can go no further then contract the muscle for 10 sec

R- Relax: After the contraction relax the muscle and stretch a little further. (sometimes it is amazing how much more the muscle will stretch because you faked out the GTO's - golgi tendon organs)

Do this set 2 or 3 times

A-C: Antongonist Contract. Now you move into the stretch dynamicaly. Use the opposite muscle to pull the hamstring into a stretch. Say your laying in your back and have a rope around your foot... contract the quad and hip flexers to raise the leg towards your head... as you start to feel a little stretch, keep the muscles contracting and give a little assist with the rope.

Do this twice.

This is a post-workout routine. Pre-workout or morning you should follow Tim's/Willards suggestions (only drink two beers - more relaxation = faster results).

Craig,
When I trained in Taiwan my teachers recommended moving the joints through their range of motion (without actually feeling a stretch) first thing in the morning (parks in China are full of people doing just this at dawn). Exercises like arm circles, rotating the hips... are preferred.

Actual stretching exercises (to restore or increase ROM) are always done later in the day or after the workout.

Also, like Backarcher explained above, static stretching does not translate to dynamic flexibility as much as most people believe. You need to work your ROM dynamically to prepare for your events.

You need just a little more flexibility than your sport requires. Extreme flexibility is often detrimental to force output.

I think there are some exceptions to this rule. For example in Yoga (and hopefully any where) they stress that you should never stretch a cold muscle. So doing those range of motion exercises is fine but Yoga is a perfect exercise/stretching system. As long as you follow its principles you can certainly do stretching to increase flexibilty in the morning.

In fact the common yoga regimin is to start out with sun salutations early in the morning. These 'vinyasa', or flowing sequences, warm your whole body up in a combination of ROM and aerobic exercise while simultaneously stretching your whole body (especially your hamstrings, shoulder and spine) The yoga 'back bends' are said to greatly increase your energy and thus are best performed in the morning or afternoon as they'll act like caffeine and keep you awake if do them in the evening. "Calming" postures (forward bends) and the like are better done in the evening to destress your body.

I believe that yoga is a perfect complement to IMA (or anything really, see the book 'real men do yoga') I personally have replaced weight training with yoga's strengthening poses because they work literally every muscle (not just the big muscle groups) while simultaneously lengthening them. And plus they're a lot safer.

I could go on and on about yoga but i could do no better than any good book on the subject. I would like to just mention that "Yoga" really doesn't have anything to do with physical exercise. Originally Yoga was purely sitting meditation and then other branches of yoga such as selfless service or "karma yoga", serpent power or "kundalini yoga" to name a few. "hatha yoga" is the yoga that focuses on physical postures (asanas). ALL of the styles of yoga were created as a different way to acheive Enlightenment.

Most people in the west are taught that yoga is only about these physical exercises (because Hatha yoga is the most popular style) but that is no more real Yoga than the new agers who wave their arms around are doing real taiji. While hatha yoga does focus on the physical it by no means ONLY focuses on them.

It's not to say that only doing the asanas are useless from a health standpoint but its even healthier (and far far far more intricate) if you find out the real story

I am a yoga teacher(as well as Pilates and Bodyflow) and yoga isn't the best training method for an athlete...and if you are a combat athlete, you certainly need to be supplementing your "movement" training with more than traditional yoga.

No system is perfect.

We all have our bias and opinions. Yet, science is science. The traditional yogis were incredible in what they discovered without the help of modern science and technology, but as was stated the original intention of yoga was not to enhance an athlete's performance.

That may explain why most yogas are only 2 dimensional where sports and life is three dimensional.

To prepare for movements, you have to move...not be still. To prepare your body to move in a 3 dimensional world...you have to move 3-dimensionally! Our bodies do not work any other way. Static stretches are great for after a workout or recovering from an injury, but not for preparing an athlete or "average Joe" for his daily physical tasks...unless he is a two-dimensional robot.

People think splits will increase their high kicks, but it's actually "kicking high" that increases their high kicks.
Furthermore it can be dangerous, for the added flexibility from static stretching doesn't add strength to the movement. So, their can be an imbalance.

I use to study ballet(believe it or not). The barre is only three feet or so high, yet they can kick over their heads. Why? Because they kick over their heads. The barre work in ballet is mostly dynamic stretching...because they MOVE when they perform!

My heart and soul has always been in Ashtanga yoga, for the power and movement, yet even that fails, for all the movements are two dimensional. I still do it for the strength poses and "calm" under pressure component, not for movement.

Also, if you are familiar with Korunta yoga, some feel the father of Ashtanga, you will see that yoga was more 3 dimensional. Some feel the movement component was essential for the original teachers taught young boys in school. I'm a elementary teacher now and believe me...you got to let them move.

I did an exhibition of my "PowerHouse Yoga Bodyflow" a few weeks ago at Michigan State, for their yoga club. People studying yoga for 20 years were "flexible...statically", but they had a very difficult time moving three dimensionally.

"Real" flexibility consist of strength, agility, balance, co-ordination and dynamic flexibility. that's "real world".

Great post!

Hello backarcher,

thanks for the interesting post.

I'm wondering if you can briefly describe the difference between 2-D and 3-D movement. Unless I get a whole lot thinner I can only ever imagine myself doing 3-D movements.

Ed

Thanks!

2-D is back and forth, forward and back. Most karate styles are dominated by 2-D movement, with some Okinawan exceptions. Linear movement. What a robot does.

3-D, consist of moving top/bottom, right/left, forward/back. Circles, half-circles, figure-eights, cloverleaf...moving through multiple planes of motion. Tai-Chi is 3-D. Wushu is very 3-D!

Combat is 3-D.

Life is 3-D.

Ballet is more 2-D, with some exceptions.
Modern dance is 3-D. This is why some ballet dancers have a difficult time transitioning to modern or jazz dance. See the movie "Save the Last Dance"?

This is why the traditional karate-style fighters looked so awkward in the first UFCs. You perform the way you train.

Kids play 3-D and have great flexibility. Then...they begin to play organized sports and their training begins to decrease their movement potential, as adults we then do only thinks like linear weight training, linear stretching, walking and running...until we say..."I'm getting old"! Yeah, right.

Backarcher, great post. What do you feel would be a good, all-around flexibility or "movement" routine? I've personally found the russian ballistic stretching to be very beneficial.

I think it's an individual thing. As long as you follow the basic scientific concepts. Please read this: http://www.cmcrossroads.com/bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/stretching_5.html#SEC38

It's the most thorough and popular piece written about stretching.

Sonnon, Pavel and Kurtz all have good material.

Also, Stott Core Conditioning has good stuff. I was trained in Stott Pilates.

Backarcher,
thanks for the link, and another question.

Basically I agree with what you've written.

Still I'm not familiar with Korunta Yoga. I heard the story about the Yoga Korunta having been eaten by ants. I have a friend who has spent a fair chunk of the last 15 years researching Yoga in india who says that Krishnamacharya's Korunta story had all the historical vaidity of Shaolin coming from Damo and Taiji from Chang San Feng.

So tell me about Korunta Yoga. Who practises it?

Also please excuse me all you martial artists who don't want to hear about Yoga history/politics too!

Ed

Thanks, Backarcher, I've bookmarked the site. Also, I guess what I do is actually dynamic stretching rather than ballistic.

Your welcome!
Ken, I thought that was what you meant.

No one practices classical Korunta anymore. Some believe this is where Ashtanga came from. Yes. I heard all of those stories. I guess we'll never know. I'll tell you a little more later. I have some info saved.

Also, Viniyoga and Kundalini yoga are "dynamic" forms of yoga.

Backarcher,
Can you describe Viniyoga? And are you referring to Yogi Bhajan's KY or some other branch?
Buddy

Recently one of the science publications had an article on contortionists and flexibility. Turns out that some people really are built diferently. There is specific medical terminology for this variation. Their connective tissues allow greater flex than the rest of us. Approximately ten percent of the population fit this category and there is significant variation of how 'loose' they can get. This accounts for those people who just can't seem to develop a strech or posture, and others who (incorrectly) think that anyone can do it with enough practice.

Viniyoga was created by the late Sri. T. Krishnamacharya in the 1970's. Viniyoga emphasizes the breath; in fact, each movement is led by the breath.

Viniyoga has a more relaxed approach to placement of the body than say Iyengar Yoga. For example, knees and elbow might be bent in a posture and emphasis placed on lengthening the spine. Viniyoga has a much less vigorous pace than Ashtanga or Power Yoga.

Viniyoga modifies the postures to meet the needs of the individual student. Therefore, it is often taught as private, therapeutic yoga.

Asanas or poses are done in repetition. Kundalini does this also, but are less scientific about. They do the reps to develop there "Kundalini" energy. They both influence my personal practice and teaching.

Scott Sonnon's Warrior Wellness program is like a more 3-dimensional form of Viniyoga.

A Question for all you martial artists/fitness gurus:

I'm trying to develop my flexibility through stretching and wanted to develop the splits. I have tried shutdown threshold isometrics and that whole Pavel routine. I have also tried active stretching, but to no end. I am wondering if anyone might have any suggestions for me to get past that barrier I keep hitting which prevents me from achieving my goal (the splits). Is it possible that my body is just not built for that kind of flexibility?

It could be that you are not built for it, but give Thomas Kurz a try:

http://www.stadion.com/column.html

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I've read his stuff on the net and have his book. I don't want to sound selective, but I prefer Pavel as a source because of his over-simplification and aggressive approach. But I guess if it was all so simple, I would be writing this with by feet wrapped behind my head or in the splits. Nevertheless, I believe they both have a lot to offer. Whether you achieve the splits or not, this approach to stretching is great and I would recommend this to anyone over static stretching.

2 all beef:

Quesion: What is the "barrier" you keep hitting exactly?

I had the same goal in mind years ago.
It has taken me a long time to acheive the splits, but I have done it. How? regular practice. I started off with a few basic stretches and consistantly practiced them. Over time I learned other stretches and added them to what I was doing. A few stretches that really helped me (and this may not work for you-depending on where you lack flexibility) 1. Stretching from a standing position with one leg against a wall body facing forward to the wall in front of you 2. Alternating forward bow stance and sit back (feet flat on the ground). 3. Sitting on the ground soles touching, grab the feet and press elbow into your knees trying to get them to touch the ground. And of course doing the split stretch itself. A big part of getting it is breathing into the stretch, not bouncing, and putting your mind into the stretch to "tell yourself" to relax as you try to stretch further. It's not an easy task, but if you can breath into a stretch and relax as you deepen your stretch, I think you will find your stretching will improve at a faster pace. IMO you should spend 30 secs to 1 min in a stretch. There are times I will go longer just trying to get deeper. There are a few other moving execises that are really good, but I don't know that I could explain them well enough to make sense here. Above all, try to be patient.

Good luck!

ANJ

ANJ,

Great advice. Thanks. This barrier lies in the groin section, which I believe really is, anatomically speaking, the heart of being able to do the splits and other feats of extreme flexibility. The old Buddha and Butterfly stretches are good, I agree.

I still highly recommend Pavel Psatsouline's methods and approach to stretching, regardless of my failure to achieve the splits. I think he is a physical freak of nature. If you don't have his videos, check them out. He looks very very strong and his flexibility is incredible. Genetics, maybe. But I have used his isometric methods of stretching and not only am I more flexible, but I'm stronger and have a much better range of motion in my joints.

The stretches that I concentrated on were the hip flexor and quad stretch, the hip flexor and outer thigh stretch, the front split stretch, the hamstring towel stretch, and this one where you lie in a kind of prone position with your knees on the floor and you attempt to stretch out that groin (like a frog or whatever).

I did a lot of contracting of the muscle and holding the position to play with the stretch reflex. PNF stuff (Pneumomuscular Flexibility Training), Shutdown Threshold Isometrics, Golgi Organ Reflex, etc. I would overload with heavy weights and vigorously contract muscles and try to relax into a greater range, then contract again and repeat the process. Let me tell you, that method is painful and your brain is overloading on excruciating agony, staying physically balanced, and pushing your body to its flexibility limits. In addition, you want to avoid stretching improperly and joint and tissue damage. So this type of stretching will test your soul, so-to-speak.

I'm open to any advice. Thanks again.