For UKfightfreak

You seem to have the science of stretching down fairly well; I'm wondering if you could post your daily stretching routine?

Sure,


MORNING:
Morning I get up, march on the spot for a while and the joint rotations starting from the neck and moving down through everything to the toes.

then dynamics stretches, this would be arms swings forward and backwards, then arm rotations, forward, backwards and opposite (one forward one back).

Then I will do legs swings, depending on how I feel normally about 12 swings in each set, forward, side and back, sometimes I do one set, sometimes two (this depends on how I feel from the previous days workoust i.e. am I tighter than usually or not).

I will finish this by doing 100 adductor flies (usually with a kilo or two on my ankles depending on the previous days workout).

WORKOUTS:
At the moment I am just doing two kick boxing sessions and two weights sessions.

For the weights I tend to do the dynamic stretching the same as the morning stretches. For the kick boxing sessions I will start out the same but during this my leg swings are a little different - as it I will use my hand as a target to swing to (to improve co-ordination). Then I will do more specific movements (actaully kick starting off low and increasing height).

After the weights sessions I will do isometric stretches consisting mainly of front and side splits, I will follow this with relaxed stretches.

For kickboxing I tend to be quite exhausted so I don't normally do isometrics and stick with relaxed stretches.

As I have only recently been training regularly again (I have been far too busy in the past year getting a degree, moving into a new flat, finding a new job) so my isometric split has suffered, I can still perform a relaxed split relatively easily but at the moment I do need to warm up for 10 mins or so to acheive a nice flat split.

This will change once I begin directed strenth exercises such as lunges, adductor pull downs etc. In my strenth routines.I hope to be on top form by around March time.

Finally, at the moment I am doing a couple of royal courts a week (hindu squats, hindu push-ups and back bridging). This in itself is good for back flexiblity and sometimes (If I feel like it!) I will do squats in a 5 step horse stance, holding about 20kgs in my hands, then I will do a second set in 7 step horse stance. This is mainly to help with knee strenth in the split position.

This is not concrete, some weeks I will do more, some less depending on how I feel, I also occasionally do some relaxed streches when I feel like it (If I'm bored watching TV or something) but really I probably spend about two and a half hours a week in total stretching, working out roughly to about 10 mins each morning, leaving about 10 mins before each workout and probably about 10 mins after each strenth workout with the odd relaxed streching here and there.

At the moment I don't get any running in really but I do like to get out a few times a week where I will make large strides with the trailing leg kicking myself in the butt! - I know a guy that hasn't run for years but when he did he did marathons running this method and he can still do a full split just because of running in this way!!!!

I will also say at the moment that I am not hitting the isometrics as hard as I used to, purely because my squat and deadlift have come down - as soon as they are back up to par, I will be doing 4 isomtrics sessions (one after each strenth workout and 1 after kickboxing).

If you have any questions about the above routine don't hesitate to ask - even if it sounds stupid as I used to work for hours a day just doing relaxed streching for pretty poor results, my kicks were weak and I used to pull muscles all the time - since I've been doing the above workout the only time I have had off through injury is in the past week or so when I decided it was a good idea to put my foot through a glass lamp - I was on the way down from a hand stand - Doh!