Flexibility made easy or why isn’t your stretching making you flexible?
Why isn’t your stretching making you flexible?
In fitness training a lot of participants find flexibility can be the hardest attribute for them to achieve. Often flexibility training is viewed as a necessary evil and not something that is looked forward to. In my opinion it is an essential modality for active people and people wanting to become active. Having and cultivating flexibility brings key benefits to the human body for health and performance. Flexibility is tied to increasing and maintaining proper circulation. A lack of circulation is a lack of life in limb.
The approach.
How to approach stretching is key, it is an amazingly diverse vast subject and everyone is different. There are no cookie cutter stretching molds that I can plug you into that will take care of all your needs all the time. Rather than focus on specific exercise vocabulary lets examine the proper approach and focus on the essential principles.
Proper breathing leads to relaxation.
- A key element of stretching is the ability to let go to release, relax in order to elongate and change the density of the muscle (s).
" Breath is the language the body speaks." Em
- Focus on breathing deeper filling the entire lungs feel the body swell and expand.
- Exhale, slowly squeeze and pull the breathing muscles thoroughly evacuate the lungs.
- Notice the effect that the breathing has on the muscular tension. Follow the increase and the wane. Use the breath as a tool to foster release.
- Don’t fight the positions work in them.
Relaxation does not mean that there is no effort. Relaxation is active, releasing is conscious. Being present is very important to making adjustments in the posture and to be able to take advantage of the release you are "actively" creating to stretch deeper.
Daily stretching is a way of knowing yourself or getting to know you on a deeper level. This helps a lot in assessing what you are capable and it can help tremendously in deciding what to focus on in your regular exercise regimen. For the beginners it may shed light on where the focus should be when beginning a program. Giving a more accurate feedback mechanism to help you decide both exercise intensity and frequency of exercise that is optimal for YOUR body. It is true that we all have the human body, but we are all individuals and it is important to access what you need and not lump yourself in with the masses.
Training is for your lifetime. Approach it that way.
EM Gear
Gear revue for the exercise and movement lifestyle
I always like to be able to take my music with me or sometimes in my tent watch a movie and not disturb the bears. Good sound is important to me. I am an iPhone user (yes they finally got me but that is another story). I was looking for a dual headphones set that would allow me to listen to music or lectures on my phone as well as being able to answer calls. The supplied headphones keep falling out of my ears and the sound quality is lackluster.
I purchased a pair of Motorola that are new on showcase at my service provider.
They give me the 1 month no questions asked return guarantee and immediately I think "the guarantee almost always guarantees I will have to bring it back. Why cant they just make quality and save me a trip. Hence the reason I decided to write about my triumphs and failures. Please make comments especially, if you have found something great or awful that we should stay away from. Individual tastes notwithstanding.
Motorola SF 200 Sport headphones
The sound quality was ok, but there was too much treble/high range, which is particularly dangerous with the in-ear type headphones. Basically the in-ear headphones are sound canons and should be used wisely. Even after adjusting the EQ on my phone the treble was still painfully high. I was listening to a lecture and the volume that I needed to have it to understand the lecture coupled with the headphones proclivity to blast the highs was too much to bear.
Call quality.
I can say unequivocally that I have never had a problem with call quality in NY proper and while walking through Union SQ. after just purchasing I had static so bad that I had to hang up on mom take them off and call back again. Whack. Thumbs down.
Sports
Very funny…
Koss Porta Pro on ear headphones
The trend now with headphones is to wear studio style headphones on the street. I find that this is not very good for an active lifestyle for a few reasons. Aside from being too cumbersome they tend to be 0ver 100.00 dollars and more. This is past my outdoor budget cutoff for headphones, which I know, will take a beating or get lost or stolen and so...
These are music headphones exclusively, however and do not allow for the receiving and making of phone calls.
Sound
The sound quality is without peer (check the specs) for portable headphones in their class, which almost nothing is in its class.
They are portable, but will blow you away particular if your musical tastes extend into the classical or jazz domain. E Power Biggs plays Bach Organ Works is scary good as well as listening to Salif Keita or...
Health
I take my hearing very seriously. I tend to prefer on-the-ear headphones as they disperse the sound over a wider surface area. The in-ear tends to be as mentioned earlier an ear canon particularly if you are trying to drown out Manhattan or the subway or your boyfriend. To be clear any direct sound source like headphones can be abused.
The complete enclosed studio model type headphones are designed to enclose the listener in isolating them more completely from outside sound. Wonderful in a studio or the privacy of your home, NOT GOOD in the city where a thousand things should be heard like “watch out”, “run” or “he’s got a gun”.
I think the on-the-ear design is a nice compromise as long as they are not being played to loud as to drown out good advice.
Durability
About average, which means if your using them a lot expect to buy another pair before the year is out. The original pair I bought came with a nice braided covering over the wire. My new pair with blue accents on the headphones does not have the wire making it a short waiting to happen. My advice, buy two for the price you will still be under what most of the studio size headphones cost and the sound is much better.
Em
Emory M Moore Jr, Founder of EM Technique
www.emtechnique.com
Available for personal training, seminars & group exercise training