To Stretch Through Relaxation: 5 Steps to Flexibility

When we talk about flexibility, a circus act with a snake woman and splits with “bridges” come to mind. You can learn how to make them. However, often, just starting on our path to flexibility, we are faced with body resistance and even a normal tilt is out of the question. How to start stretching if the body has always been “wooden” and actively resists such innovations?

What prevents us from bending over and reaching the floor with our palms, bending, stretching? Habitual stress. It “accumulates” in the joints, prevents you from moving freely.

When we decide to work on flexibility, we try to stretch. For a trained person whose muscles are elastic, this is the right step. However, for “wooden” muscles, stretching is a difficult task. How does an unprepared body react to it? It is trying to return to its usual state, because the most precious and valuable thing for it is stability.

Moreover, the muscles become even more “wooden”, even less mobile. So it turns out that I worked out, stretched out – and in the morning it’s not something to bend over, it’s even difficult to turn my neck. Familiar story? Here are 5 tips to help you stretch properly and avoid muscle resistance.

1. Take an objective look at your own capabilities

First of all, evaluate your potential and set realistic goals. Dysplastics, people with weak ligamentous apparatus, can naturally bend in half and throw a leg over their head. Whereas people with endomorphic physiques – dense, knocked down, easily gaining muscle mass – are good at strength sports, but they bend with great difficulty.

So look at yourself objectively. For example, if now when you bend over you reach your knees, then the victory will be to reach your ankle with your fingers. And don’t think about the twine just yet. And when you achieve your first victory, be sure to celebrate it. Then – a new goal and a new celebration of victory.

2. Practice relaxation

Tense muscles will resist the stretch in response. Whereas the relaxed ones are more pliable and ready to work. In addition, active relaxation itself increases natural mobility.

What do relaxation practices include? Let’s look at them using the example of qigong for the spine Sing Shen Juang.

You perform a set of exercises aimed at working out the active points of the spine and joints, learn to “turn off”, relax your muscles. For example, when doing the “Snake Rings” exercise, which looks like a normal tilt, you seem to hang and transfer your attention to the spine, from the neck to the coccyx.

Practicing mind control and seeking relaxation helps you lean lower each time, and doing the exercise regularly trains the body to maintain and increase the depth of relaxation with each new repetition. Forms a tender, trusting bond with the body. Working with muscles becomes pleasant, neat and conscious.

3. Warm up

First, you practice relaxation (you need to devote some time to this, at least a month) and gradually begin to connect cardio loads to your workouts. Jumping rope, cycling or just walking – depending on the individual condition. As your body gets stronger, you begin to do a set of intense cardio exercises to warm up before stretching. The task is to sweat and feel a burning sensation in the muscles.

4. Stretch

The main indicator that stretching is beneficial is the pleasant sensations during the exercise. To deepen this or that inclination (sitting, standing), try to pause in the movement on the exhale. A long free exhalation, tilt, pause – and a slightly deeper tilt. This technique is borrowed from women’s Taoist practices, which also allow you to make the body soft, flexible and free.

5. Know the measure

Perform both the practice of relaxation and stretching – for a C grade. This will keep you motivated to repeat the exercises the next day and perform even better. Act, and soon your body will change, because flexibility is one of the indicators of health. This means that you will become stronger, happier and more confident in yourself.