What are the basic methods of flexibility training?

The core logic of flexibility training is actually to allow soft tissues such as muscles, tendons, and ligaments to adapt to longer tension lengths through controllable external force stimulation, and at the same time, allow the nerves responsible for controlling muscle contraction to slowly adapt to a larger range of joint motion. There are no fancy shortcuts, and all operations are extended around this core.

You usually sit on the yoga mat and bend forward after running, and hold it for half a minute without shaking. This is the most basic and most common static stretching. In the early years, the fitness circle also emphasized doing static stretching for half an hour before training. Later, more and more competitive sports data came out, saying that static stretching for more than 30 seconds before training will temporarily reduce the explosive output of the muscles, making it easier to get injured. I encountered this pitfall when I was leading an amateur marathon team a few years ago. Before the game, I arranged for each group to perform static calf pulls of 45 seconds. Two team members who usually scored 40 points in 10 kilometers lost 2 minutes after running that time, saying that their legs could not generate strength. Later, I changed to only doing dynamic pulls before training, and static pulls after training, and the results stabilized. Of course, this does not mean that static pulls can only be done after training. If you have a particularly tight part, such as a sedentary person whose hip flexors are too stiff to squat, adding short static pulls of 10 seconds per group before training can help you open up your range of motion and make it difficult to compensate when you perform movements. This is also what many rehabilitation practitioners will recommend now. The methods of adaptation are completely different for different situations.

There is another common thing that everyone does in warm-up, such as standing and swinging the legs forward and backward, side lunges and moving back and forth, which is dynamic stretching. To put it bluntly, it means slowly swinging within your existing range of motion and pushing the boundaries a little bit. This will not reduce muscle tension, but can activate soft tissues. Basically, all sports are now arranged for pre-training warm-ups. However, when novices do it, don’t swing it hard. I have seen some people swing their legs too much and directly pull the back of the thigh, which is not worth the gain. If you want to improve your flexibility faster, for example, if you need to open your shoulders and hips quickly when practicing dance or weightlifting, most people will use PNF stretching. As the saying goes, "stretch to the limit and exert force for a few seconds, then relax and continue to pull." A weightlifting coach I contacted before taught new people to open their shoulders by asking the students to lie on the mat, raise their hands above their heads, and the coach held down the students' back. For the back, the student first exerts force and presses down for 5 seconds. When relaxing, the instructor then gently presses down a little, which is much faster than a simple static stretch. However, it is best to find someone with experience to guide you. If you do it at home, it is easy to use the wrong force and strain the hamstrings. I used to have a student follow the short video to do PNF to stretch the hamstring muscles. When the resistance was used, the force was too strong, and the pain lasted for almost two weeks.

In fact, to put it bluntly, flexibility training is like stretching a rubber band. If you keep pulling it lightly, it will be static. If you pull it back and forth slowly, it will be dynamic. If you pull it, stretch it a little and then loosen it, it will be PNF. No matter which method is used, the core should not be so painful that it will tremble. If it hurts so much that you can't breathe when you pull it, it must be that the strength has been exceeded. Many people now have misunderstandings about flexibility training. They think that being able to do the splits means you are flexible. In fact, the industry now pays more attention to "flexibility must match strength." After you pull your hips, it is best to do a few sets of clam poses and glute bridges to stabilize the opened range of motion with strength, otherwise the joints will shake. Unfortunately, it is easy to get injured during exercise. There used to be a girl who did the leg splits every day. As a result, her knees hurt when she ran. When I checked, it was because the hip range of motion was increased but the surrounding muscle strength could not keep up. When running, the joints were shaken and hit the patella, which was not worth the gain.