Welcome back to another weekly newsletter and the continuation of our more advanced pike flexibility program.
If you missed last week's newsletter and Phase 1 of the program, you can find it here.
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As we journey through midlife, it's common to experience a decline in physical performance coupled with an increase in muscle stiffness, joint discomfort, and the risk of injury.
Flexibility training emerges as a crucial tool in counteracting these effects, preserving and enhancing the joint range of motion essential for daily activities and injury prevention.
Throughout May, our newsletter will focus on pike flexibility, offering insights and training programs that can be easily implemented at home with minimal equipment.
Forward fold flexibility is pretty much the same as core compression strength. We’re trying to close the angle between the torso and the legs. But instead of focusing on the anterior chain strength, we’re talking about the posterior chain length.
Forward fold flexibility is about stretching the posterior chain muscles - soles of the feet, calves, hamstrings, glutes, back, and even neck muscles.
Most adults find it hard to touch their toes. Bringing your nose to your shins often seems like an impossible feat.
This is where choosing the correct progressions is critical to your success.
If you're like me, you want to increase your pike and pancake flexibility.
Let me guess.
You spend a lot of time stretching your hamstrings, glutes, obliques, quadratus lumborium (QL's), traps and spinal erectors.
I get it, these are the commonly used exercises for pike and pancake gainz and exactly what I’d been focusing my training on.
But, I'd often feel that something was missing.
Over the last 18 months, I've been working to increase my flexibility.
As an adult, it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking that we'll never be flexible.
"Either you're born with it, or you're not."
"I'm too old to start training flexibility."
I get it.
After years of training and competing in endurance sports and then doing CrossFit, I never thought of myself as someone who could be flexible.
Increasing flexibility is like building strength; it takes time and consistency and I believe it's never too late to increase flexibility
With that said, let's get back to the point of this post and talk about how to start training pike flexibility.
