Hi Mate,

I had a great holiday thanks, lots of sun and rest. Only then I had to come back and the weather is shocking!
Regarding your suggestion, I have started (well, last time I taught) to warm-up the class, dynamic stretch and save relaxed stretches until the last 15 mins, so spot on idea dude. I dont give my students isometric stretches because of it not being good for children and so forth. your routine is similar to mine although you seem to work harder at it. my suggestion is to have a good week stretching and measure up at weekends, what do you say? Did you read the thomas kurtz book? also how old is everyone, i'm 24.

Rossko

Yes I agree it would be a good idea to have a good week of stretching and then measure at the end of the week.
I think we should all measure before we all start our proper workouts just so that we can see how much of an increase we get from when we first started.
You may even want to take a photograph to look back at; I feel this could motivate people because when they see a difference it makes them want to try harder.
And to answer your question yes I have read Tom Kurz's book many times.
I have also read various other books on the matter, but the one that helped design my workout was Tom Kurz's book.

I usually don't have a lot of time so my stretching is very brief:
I only stretch in the evenings, no time during the morning rush. I also don't have such a fancy routine.
warmup: 10 dynamic leg raises (front, side & back)
day 1:
-PNF stretching: psoas, quads, hamstrings, buttocks
-relaxed stretching (30 secs) side split (adductors)

day 2:
-PNF stretching (contracting 10 secs, contracting antagonist 10 secs, relax 10 secs): side split
-relaxed stretching: psoas, quads, hamstrings, buttocks

I keep alternating these.

Well I know it's very simplistic, but it seems to work, I measured exactly what you said for about a week, and there seems to be at least some improvement. I'll look for it and post it later.

One remark:

Quote:

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Isometric stretches (contracting and relaxing the stretching muscle until maximum stretch and then holding for 30 secs.) I use 3 sets each of two stretches for hams, quads and adductors

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Isometric stretches require at least 36 hours of rest for your muscles. But you do several quickly after eachother, most sources I've read state that that slows your progress down and that you should stick with only 1 isometric stretch a day, you can do relaxed stretches as much as you like though.


Edit: here are the values I measured this weak (in cm):
front (randomly chosen left leg in front, in the middle I noticed the other way is better but I persisted on that side) (not a lot of progress really): *(somehow I felt a pain in my knee so I stopped), 13, 13, *(ill), 14, 12, 11
side (some decent progress, too bad I was ill): 24, 20, 18, *(ill), 21, 19, 17.
Total gains for a front split 2 cm, side split 7 cm.

Wow, I'm genuinely impressed by your results. Especially considering you only stretch once per day!! I took what you said on board about isometric stretching too often. What I shall do in light of what you said is continue on my routine as it is for the next 4 weeks, logging my progress and then for another 4 weeks adjust my routine as you suggest. Then see which works best for me. My suspicion is that you are right (I thought it seemed a lot when I first read it in the book) but I would first like to make sure. No insult intended by that by the way.

Tezza, pictures sounds like a good idea but at present I cannot get them on my pc cos my pc won't support the software that came with my mobile but I'm getting another pc soonish so should be able to do them eventually. Unless of course i get that elusive side split between two chairs in the meantime and then I might go to the trouble of sorting a pic out some other way!!!!!!

Just off to warm up and stretch now so that I can give some starting figures. I've been so busy I couldn't get to my computer for a few days and didn't want you lot to think I'd lost interest so that's why I've replyed first!

Okay...here it is,

very dissapointing! Didn't have time to warm up, just did dynamic stretches, front and side only due to going to work in a minute, 3 sets of 10.

Side split 34cms off floor
Front split (Left forwards) 17cms off floor
Front split (Right forwards) 18cms off floor.

What do you all do for warm-up apart from dynamics?

Rossko

Like Kurz says rotation of the joints. I also do a bit of skipping and some other general warm up exercises just to get the body pumping ready for the main stretches.

I have just measured myself like yours very dissapointing! I Didn't have time to warm up, just did dynamic stretches, front and side. I will have to do it again with a proper warm up but here are my results:

Side split 30cms off floor exactly
Front split (Left forwards) 17cms off floor
Front split (Right forwards) 19cms off floor.

This is my first measurement so I hope we will be seeing improvements shortly
Also this is without a proper warmup so it might be a few cms lower after a warm up.

Very similar Tezza,

I did a leg workout the day before stretching too so I think I may be able to shave a few centimetres off my split. Hopefully my side split. The technique I'm needing the splits for is called a butterfly side kick, where I jump up and perform a double side kick. I don't strictly need to be in the splits but i have to be able to reach chest height with both legs at the same time! If that technique isn't bad enough I also have to do a butterfly crescent kick. Same as butterfly side kick but with crescent kicks. My chief instructor says that when he did it and he was younger he could do the splits no problem and it nearly ripped his hips open!!

Rossko

I have no main reason like you to limber up as they say.
Although I do want to become more flexible and through doing this stretching buddy idea I think it will help to motivate me much more. So thats why I am in

It will soon be the weekend so I hope everyone has been stretching plenty and is ready to post their measurements!

Rossko