When is the last time you gave yourself a stretch?
Unless you are into sports, there are not many moments in your everyday life to raise the thinking "Oh, I have to stretch now".
Since dancing and having a flexible body is closely related, you cant avoid this discussion. When I do dancing, it usually comes in 3 sets; a quick stretch before practice, a firm extensive stretch after warm up, and finally a stretch around my waist, which is overworked with dance after practice.
Stretching has various purposes and methods. Some of them are for injury prevention to be done before the exercise. Others are aftercare to ease out the fatigue and to soften the body that widens the range of motion.
Here, I will introduce the tips to remember when you start stretching for the first time. The particular incident I have in mind is how to split your legs, which is done by softening the hip joints.
This video from Howcast gives you a good idea of what to do when stretching for splits. This blog post will dive deeper into what you should be expecting in that process and the things you should keep in mind over a long run.
Necessary pain in stretching
Not only the stereotypical stiffness of man's body but also a woman who does not play sports much or who keeps the same posture for a long time from desk work is often hard.
Stretching has a positive effect on your health and beauty, as well as improving your athletic ability. Boston University School of Medicine found that stretching activity such as yoga enhances your mood and reducing anxiety adjusting the balance of hormone.
Stretching brings a positive impact.
However, as a dancer, our stretching is for the purpose of achieving flexibility. It will feel painful. It is still possible to gain flexibility and open legs through harmless timid stretching, but you will need to spend a considerably long period of time.
How fast can I master it?
Following this procedure, taking in the individual differences, it will take about six months for men and three for women.
When doing it every day, you should not force your way too much. It is okay with slight pain. Or, it is not recommended to do it to the extent that your face grimaces in pain because you might develop arthralgia in an unlucky case.
If you really want to achieve flexibility as fast as possible, you could pursue it every day. I can close my eyes as long as you are well-informed. In that case, always check your body against the sensation of incongruity around the hip joint, please take a little rest.
The way you work hard to the point your forehead is covered in sweat has a good improvement impact. Although splits look like hell, it is also easy to produce an outcome.
If you are a stretch beginner and wants to practice those flexibility methods with such pain, please begin at a pace around 3 times a week. It is not uncommon to injure your body from stretching, especially if you are a motivated type who puts in extra hard effort from the beginning. You need to pay attention.
Personally, I recommend slight pain.
Regardless of the part, you are stretching whether it is your hip or arms, you have to strike the balance between the pain and effectiveness. "It feels a little painful" is the best spot.
People in a hurry could go for the intense pain course. Nothing will stop you. If not in hurry, please follow the slight pain course from 3 to 6 months.
Improve flexibility and athletic ability
Ranging from ball games, athletics, martial arts, dancing...
For those who are participating in sports or competition, Keeping your body that can maximize performance is the most important thing.
Speaking of maintaining your body, muscle training easily comes to mind. But, your body just becomes hard, making it difficult to demonstrate the exercise capacity.
Obtaining flexible supple body leads to efficient use of your muscle and reduction of breakdowns. Stretching has a positive effect not only on beauty but also on the sports scene. For the relation to dancing with motor skills, see "Dancing is not only for the athletics".
Learn the merit of being able to open legs, and motivate yourself for enabling flexibility of the hip joint.
Go beyond the initial pain
There is a part that feels good in stretching, and there is only a part that only hurts. The hip joint is... well, it hurts in any conceivable way.
It really hurts when starting out with the stiff hard body. Unlike a casual stretch that aims at preventing injuries and relieving from fatigue, flexibility enhancing stretches are meant to do it with the facial expression of slight agony.
The good news is the pain will be alleviated as the body gets softened. I think so many people abandon the effort in a middle way because of this initial pain.
If you keep going at it for about a month without skipping, you will be able to feel the progress.
That realization feeling will be converted into the force that pushes you to give in your best work and to continue. Since it will become a habit to stretch if you do it for 3 months, you can actually open your legs flat against the floor.
The trick to soften the pain of the hip joint is to start extending from its surroundings without opening suddenly, and gradually shift to a more highly effective method.
If you achieve one goal, you gain confidence in your accomplishment ability on top of flexibility.
There are many people who push themselves hard initially and give up right after. Let's make a habit of stretching with the slight pain while maintaining the modest pace.