Stretching Scientifically?

[system]

Just wandering has anyone here had experience with this book Stretching Scientifically on the web site stadion.com?I have seen that advertisement for years in Black Belt monthly where the guy is doing the splits with the girl sitting on one of his legs! I was just wandering If it is worth buying or does anyone have a copy they would like to sell?

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[system]

Check out Beyond Stretching by Pavel Tsatsouline. The best book on stretching I’ve read, and easy to follow for those unfamiliar with geeky fitness terms. It can be found at <A HREF=“http://www.dragondoor.com” TARGET=“_blank”>http://www.dragondoor.com</A> and I belive at Amazon’s and Barnes and Nobles sites. You won’t be disappointed.

[system]

stretching scientifically is good too and easy to understand except for the theory part which you dont have to read

[system]

I can save you a lot of money…

And hit the highlights of the book Stretching Scientifically.

He goes into great scientific detail (probably too technical for most) in order to then conclude that your muscles automatically contract to protect themselves, and you must gradually train them to “release” throughout a larger range of motion. That’s a significant point: muscles aren’t “stretching”.

He advocates doing dynamic stretching in the morning (leg swings, arm swings) to quickly regain the range of motion lost during sleep. (It works. After a gentle warm-up and less than 5 mins of kicks, you can move at around 90% max range later in the day without warming up.)

To increase flexibility, he advocates dynamic stretching followed by isometric stretching several times a week. (And static stretching, if desired, as a cool down.)

He also emphasizes that muscle strength increases flexibility, because less of the overall muscle is needed to hold the body in position, which means the muscle won’t lock-up into “protection mode”. Related to this, he indicates that muscle soreness and fatigue are what typically limit flexibility day to day in an athlete. So his workouts are designed to limit these things (low reps, high weight, isometric stretching is treated as strength training so only done a few times per week).

I found the last point very, very helpful. It explained why I was more flexible when I >didn’t< workout or stretch for a few days, which always confused me.

So that’s it in a nutshell.

I haven’t read Pavel’s book. How does it compare

[This message was edited by crumble on 01-11-01 at 04:27 PM.]

[system]

a lot of this info is also available at:

<A HREF=“http://www.enteract.com/~bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/stretching_toc.html” TARGET=“_blank”>http://www.enteract.com/~bradapp/docs/rec/stretching/stretching_toc.html&lt;/A&gt;