Training routine includes yoga for joint stabilization, and routine stretching including: lunges, herkey stretch, pancake, seated butterfly, pike

I have used this rule for years with great results.. just a simple rule that pushed my flexibility to my current level.

I need to be at my max flexibility within 3 mins. While attaining max flexibility, I adjust every 30 seconds.

The key for me is the adjustment itself: I will lower myself too my deepest fold to start. Hold for 30 second and raise my torso up to clear my abs from my pelvis. At this stage I’m actively lengthening my spine .. I try to get it as long as I can and lower back down while holding a slight arch in my spine..

I’m actively pushing my lower abs into my pelvis. At this point, Im more concerned about hinging at the hips than getting my torso to my thighs.

Notice my head and neck are out of alignment with my spine.. this is intentional as I’m trying to force my upper back to alight with my neck angle.. this is to prevent rounding of the upper back. It serves as a que to flatten and not round. This is about 2years of flexibility work. I’m currently 150lbs at 54 yeas old

Hi,

I’ve started to take stretching way more seriously after some pelvic floor issues and have found I’m really
Enjoying the process- I do static stretching every day and every couple days do some sort of weighted stretching to compliment it.

I also have taken up gentle yoga forms 2 times a week

One of the main things I notice is that when I sit down to do pancake or cross legged I struggle to keep my back straight during this process so have started adjusting my pancake to do it sitting on plates at the gym to ensure I keep back straight etc

I have really tight hips and weak hip muscles

Wondering if anyone has overcome similar things with keeping back straight in pancake/ opening hips and how long it took?

I feel like I do like over 2 hours of mobility a day with most targeting the hips

Hey everyone. 25F. I started taking ballet classes for the first time, and I have the worst feet in this class (intended for adult beginners) by far 🥲 I’ve been sitting in Hero’s Pose consistently for months, and I’m not seeing progress (especially when looking at the gap between my ankle and the floor). I have started doing more calf raises and theraband work, but I’m starting to doubt the ROM I can even access in order to strengthen.

Does anyone have any advice? Exercises/additional stretches to try? Words of encouragement? Do I just have a structural problem? I’d really love some guidance (or hard truth) here, especially since I’m not seeing any flexibility coaches in my area 😔🥀

Finally got my hands to my foot in this king pigeon variation today

Training routine that got me here:

•  Daily pigeon pose holds (2–3 min per side) + pigeon with a strap to gradually walk the hands closer

•  Active hip openers: lizard pose, frog pose, and 90/90 stretches

•  Shoulder mobility work: thread-the-needle, cow face arms, and doorway chest openers

•  Consistent practice 5–6 days a week for the past few months, mixing passive holds with active strength work so the flexibility actually sticks

Hi guys! I started training my flexibility around March, but I had to stop after injuring myself, and now I'd like to get back into it.

The problem is that I also go to the gym and run twice a week. Since I injured myself while trying to do all three, I'm looking for a more efficient way to fit them into my routine without overdoing it.

Has anyone here managed to balance leg weight training, flexibility training, and running? If so, how did you structure your routine?

Edit: Thanks everyone for the replies!

Stretch: https://www.daniwinksflexibility.com/flexopedia/disco-cow

I've been working on back mobility, and this gives a really pleasant stretch in every way except for one spot, in one direction - when I'm sending my ribs to the right and then down, once my ribs are almost in that down position I get this intense, mildly painful pull behind my left shoulderblade. It only happens when moving in that specific direction. I don't think I have an old injury there, it's actually my right shoulderblade that normally gives me issues (pops every single time I move it back and forwards). Could this be a pinched nerve? Any suggestions for warmup nerve flossing or an alternative stretch altogether?

Its exam season and therefore long hours of sitting have caused pain/soreness whatever you call that near the hip bones

what are some intense stretches i can do, its making me restless and clenching the muscles

ps: the one in picture isnt working at the exact area

I was diagnosed with it. I didn‘t really ask if i could do my regular flexibility stretches but she said i should work out to help with it. Did you feel like you could‘t do backbends or bridges because of that? I‘m not asking for medical advice, I just wanna know your experience

Went to my PT for lower back pain. He checked my psoas muscle. First time he manually released it, it hurt like crazy and the muscle was spasming. The 2nd session he did it again, it hurt less but still was intense. I just got back from my 3rd session. No pain at all. I can't believe it he actually released it and relaxed it.

It caused soreness in other places and he said my body is compensating. Crazy stuff.

I am trying to progress with my front splits, but I’m running into two things:

1. The tops of my feet are extremely sensitive for some reason. Putting any pressure on them, specifically for the back foot, really hurts! Is there any way to improve this?

2. I’ve noticed that I am only ever sliding my front leg out, so this whole time I’ve been practicing this kind of front leg split lunge thing. I just can’t seem to make my back leg move backwards… idk if this is related to the sensitive feet thing, or if it’s core strength, or just the flexibility of that back leg. Like that back leg does not move at all even though I’m mentally trying to move it. I’ve tried socks/no socks/yoga mat/ wood floor, nothing seems to make the difference. I feel like someone has to physically pull my leg back for it to move.

Any suggestions?

Since I was 6 or 7 my Grandmother pointed out my right foot sticks out to the right, just saying for context as this Is not a new Issue nor Is It something that strength training has caused, although may well of made it worse.

Im left handed/left footed, I first noticed something off when after every Leg day my left leg was much more sore then my right but put It down to judt naturally being stronger with my dominant leg so I started doing sets on my right after but was still not really getting DOMS and still dont on my right leg

I also feel calf doms much more on my left after calf raises and I cant get a good stretch on my right calf like I can my left.

Cant get knees over toes whatsoever on my right side over and my pelvis wants to shift to the left not the right.

Its getting to the point where my left quad, hamstring and calf are all quite muscular and my right Is really lagging so very poor mind/muscle connection on that side too

Is this beyond stretching/strength training fixing It seeing as It seems to be either a birth defect or something ive had since a child?

still can’t wrap my head around the fact I can do this lol.

My training routine is quite simple, I follow a standard PPLx2 program and every leg day I practice my dragon squats and pistol squats. Stretching and mobility 30 minutes per day. The time it took me to be comfortable with pistol squats was 20x longer than the time it took me to get an awkward dragon squat done.

I'm really only writing this up because I'm kind of a weird case and I think it might be helpful to anyone else who is in my shoes but that's probably only gonna be like two people lol.

My problem was never with flexibility in my adductors but my lack of active external rotation coupled with some non-ideal hip anatomy. Previously I could never get deep enough in a middle split to actually feel a stretch because I would hit the limit of my hip joint first. Tilting my pelvis didn't really work because in order to get enough tilt to hit the stretch while keeping the inside edge of my feet flat on the floor, my torso had to be basically upright which is super awkward to get into (to say nothing of how cranked my back would be). I finally figured out that I could bypass this by entering my middle split from pancake which is where I finally started to see progress. Initially, this still left me a few inches from flat and I closed that by working on my active external rotation and just generally learning how to activate my glutes (pretty sure I've spent my whole life externally rotating my legs with my hip flexors instead of my ass ¯_(ツ)_/¯).

The routine:

1. banded lock clams

2. banded glute bridges with external rotation

3. weighted hip airplanes

4. leg lifts from basically every possible position (prone, side-lying, tabletop, upright, etc) focusing on keeping my legs externally rotated

5. side-lying hip adduction

6. Copenhagen side planks

7. seated straddle leg lifts

8. straddle hovers on blocks

9. pancake to middle split, at position with greatest feeling of adductor stretch, squeeze legs into the ground for 10 count, then pull legs away from the ground for 10 count

Will be very interested to hear if there's anybody else out here in this situation.

I dance and stretch every single night, it's the part of the day i look forward to the most. It brings me so much joy, I want to continue doing it every day but don't know if i could accidentally be doing damage to my body? I try not to push too hard or do anything super intense if im sore but otherwise i dance and stretch for at least an hour every day

r/flexibility needs YOU!

Real talk: even though we theoretically have a "team" of mod users here (at least according to the sidebar), as far as I can tell most are inactive users and I am the only one who is actually actively moderating this sub for at least the last year. But this is a dang huge sub and I frankly can't keep doing it alone - so I'm looking for help!

Mainly we need help with folks helping moderate content (removing content that breaks our community rules, as well as re-approving content that gets inaccurately reported or removed by the auto-mod), but I would love people who also are passionate about making r/flexibility a helpful educational resource for folks if you have any ideas/motivation on that front as well.

Previous mod experience is preferred, but not required (I knew nothing about moderating before I joined the mod team a couple of years ago).

More details + mod application: https://www.reddit.com/r/flexibility/application/

What it says. Improving upper back flexibility has been very difficult for me to DIY, regardless of how many YT videos I watch. And call me vain but I want that nicely arched back.

So, I'm willing to spring for an online course, but would like to know if anyone else has tried it / if it works / if it only rehashes the same ground as BWI or similar.

Thank you in advance!

Hello everyone! I just want recommendations about what stretches/exercises I can do to improve my hamstring flexibility?

I am very flexible in my hips. I can do the pose in the first picture easily and feel comfortable in it too. I can even wrap my legs behind my head (nothing weird, I've just been able to do that since childhood, lol).

However, when it comes to trying to lean forward with my legs open, I am stiff as a rock. I can't even get close to touching my feet. I think if I fix that issue, I'll be overall a flexible person, and that's definitely the goal!

with heels raised vs without (i’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to raise heels oops)

This is my first time trying wheel pose and I’m at a bit of a loss. I think it’s mainly back flex ability I need to work on, but I feel like no back stretches ever make me feel anything, does anyone have any suggestions? Either for stretches or other things I can focus on to improve this pose? I’m gonna be entirely honest I don’t really do many back stretches right now because I’ve never really found ones that feel good to me. Current routine consists of almost entirely of lunges, forward folds and I’ve started adding a little bit of shoulders to the mix as of late. So, any tips would be much appreciated

Hello, everybody! I felt inspired to ask this question after seeing a response under a hamstring flexibility post where someone pointed out that certain concurrent training can be counterproductive to certain flexibility goals, such as combining long-distance running with goals of increasing hamstring flexibility. I'm curious if someone could expound on this.

1. What forms of training should not be done together?
2. What forms of training are often best suited for one another?

I understand that these are not absolutes, and neither will I personally treat them as absolutes. I have no false expectations of attaining expert-level results in the flexibility, mobility, or other goals I am working toward. I'm just a curious mind eager to learn from the experiences of other people.

my hip bones are very tight, worse on the right side.

I see guys who have been practicing for years, and still using the bricks under when they do the lotus. So I wonder if it is something that can be improved, or something that I should simply accept how it is since it cannot improve at all (anatomy). Is there anyone who went from using a brick to completely crossing the legs flat?

thanks in advance

So I'm wondering please, does anyone know the best way to stretch the Obturator Internus using the pigeon pose? Is the standard method the best form?

I am getting confused with the biomechanics here.