Does your pet know something about stretching that you don’t? Watch what your dog or cat does after a nice, long nap.
The first thing they do is stretch, but they don’t hold a stretch for 20-30 seconds like most people, they stretch out while contracting their muscles at the same time – shaking for a few seconds and then moving on.
Same thing with a wild animal, they contract their muscles at the same time they stretch. I’ve ben re-reading about resistance stretching in a book by Bob Cooley, called The Genius of Flexibility. Cooley was struck by a drunk driver in 1976 while crossing a street.
He lost quite a bit of his ability to function properly and spent time working with various doctors and therapists. Stretching seemed to be the only thing that helped. Over several years he tried different ways to stretch and breathe while stretching.
He discovered that he got the best results when he simultaneously contracted his muscles while stretching. He had received very minimal results with traditional methods. After discovering his method he started working with other people.
In 2000, he was working on a Pilates and yoga instructor where Olympic swimmer Dara Torres was also taking a private session and watched the flexibility session very intently. He ended up working with Torres before she went to the 2000 Summer Olympics.
Long story short, his methods go against tradition, but seem to get great results. From my perspective I agree that there has to be strength to go along with your flexibility, both for performance reasons, as well as injury prevention.
I had tried traditional methods of holding for 20-30 seconds in a passive stretch wirthout any results in the past and had quit trying, until I found some active stretching which got much better results. Not having proper strength/stability is probably why most people are tight to begin with.
Your body is smart enough to know that without strength you run the risk of injury, and doesn’t let you stretch far enough to get hurt. So I’ve been experimenting with this for the last few days and made some improvements.
His methods require a partner for optimal results – someone to stretch your muscles while you resist. I’d like to go try a workshop to see how it feels. Probably go up to Chicago this Summer.
I do resistance band stretching and like the results I get from that. I pull on the band as much as possible to strengthen while working on my flexibility. Dave Schmitz isn’t just flexible but agile and powerful, too. That is what you should be shooting for.
Stay tuned as I will be writing about the different types of mobility and dynamic movement in greater detail. I’ve tried most every method out there and have stretched many people in the last 10 years.
Get moving!
Brian
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