At my yoga studios in Barcelona, we teach regular, guided classes, and they are among the most popular for one simple reason: they work. I introduced Science of Stretching™ in 2007, and it has since been practiced by more than 80,000 students worldwide. When I teach, I also pair it with a down-regulating breathing pattern to assist in shutting off the stretch reflex and encouraging relaxation and release. The truth is, experts argue about the best method to train flexibility, but what I’ve found is that for people who need flexibility-yoga students, gymnasts, and dancers-the consensus is pretty much the same.įor flexibility gains, you need to supplement whatever you’re doing with long-hold passive postures that target specific areas. Science of Stretching™ is a systematic approach to flexibility training that I developed after studying and comparing notes with some of the leading yoga teachers, physiotherapists, and movement specialists in the world.
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I went from not being able to sit on the floor with my legs crossed to being able to sit in Full Lotus Pose for an hour straight, practice deep lunges with ease, and eventually put my foot behind my head (this is not really useful or even recommended, but just something that happened). Every time you deposit five minutes in a long-hold stretch, it adds to your overall mobility and flexibility.
That’s why I love the Science of Stretching™. Once you open your hips, they’ll stay open unless you start doing repetitive stress exercises or stop stretching all together. Flexibility gains are not as quick to achieve as strength gains, but they last so much longer. If that all sounds like gibberish to you, I’ll make it very simple: I learned that for flexibility training, long-hold, passive poses, with specific breathing patterns were the only way to go.Īnd it worked. I learned that muscle tissue stretches best under passive tension and that the nervous system plays a huge role in the stretch reflex. The big shift in flexibility happened when I learned the principles of theScience of Stretching™. Six months later, I started practicing yoga at a local studio, and the classes were amazing-but my hips were still two blocks of ice. I just felt bad about myself, concerned that I’d let myself go and that my daily gym workouts were somehow misguided (which they were!). They weren’t faking it either, they were truly relaxed sitting on the floor, while I was in dire misery.Īt first, nothing. My knees were at chest height, my back was hunched up, and I was literally sweating with discomfort.Īt the time, I’d never thought twice about flexibility-and especially not hip flexibility-but as I suffered through the lecture, I noticed a bunch of people much older than me were able to cross their legs with their knees on the floor, and some were even resting in Half Lotus or Full Lotus without any effort. There were no chairs, obviously, so I spent 90-minutes sitting (or attempting to sit) cross-legged on the floor. Six months before I began my yoga journey, I was invited to a raw food lecture at a yoga studio in Manhattan.
It doesn’t happen overnight, but with consistent practice, you can make massive gains in flexibility. The good news is that you can change this. Without training, by our teenage years, most of us are just as stiff as an adult. By age 10, most kids are starting to move more like adults (meaning less) and they begin to lose flexibility. Most kids sit on the floor, squat to play with toys, and move through a full range of hip motion throughout the day. Interestingly, this is not true for children. The muscles and tissues that affect flexion and extension, adduction and abduction, internal and external rotation are barely used at all! You get into a car (again in a seat), arrive at work and promptly sit down in an office chair. You make breakfast and sit on a chair or a stool that is at bum-height (or higher). You wake up, roll out of bed, and sit down on a knee-high toilet. The average person living in a Western country rarely flexes their knees past 90-degrees or squats at all. Squatting is a normal part of daily life for most people there are squat toilets, temples have no chairs, etc.īut what about you? When was the last time you dropped down into a full squat to wash your laundry, peel a carrot, or use the bathroom? The answer is probably never, and that is a huge part of the modern tight hip problem. Why? Natural movement patterns are still very common in the region. The very first thing that every Western yoga teacher notice in Southeast Asia is that tight hips are very rare. In 2003, I moved to Thailand and began my yoga teaching journey.
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