Author Topic: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!  (Read 6088 times)

Offline Zeus

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Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« on: October 16, 2006, 05:00:09 PM »
I have never been able to find a good resource on parkour specific stretces so I figured I'd post my routine.

Stretches should be preceded by a warm up (jog, jump rope, APK Warmup)

Neck rolls for ten seconds: (clockwise, counter clockwise, side to side, front to back)

Torso Twists for ten seconds: With arms extended strait out to your sides, twist your torso 90 degrees one way then backto the starting position then 90 degrees the other way. Repeat at a medium to fast rate fo the whole ten seconds.

Ten seconds of crouching: Stand with your feet together, hands on your knees, and knees together, crouch  repeatedly.

Knee circling for ten seconds: Stand with your feet and knees together and your hand on your knees. Move your knees in a variety of small and large circles.

Standing Toe Touches x2 for ten seconds apiece: Stand with your legs completely strait and bend over at the hips trying to touch the ground. Advance to bending further and further until you can bend in half

Standing Quad Stretch for ten second per leg: Standing strait (can be assisted for balance) grab the top of your foot and pull it to your buttocks pionting your toes as upward as possible.

Soleus stretches ten seconds per side: Stand feet half a step apart, hands on your hips. Lower yourself placing your weight on the back foot. Advanced: Pistols

Spine touches for ten seconds per side: Place one of your hands, palm touching your back, and reach downwards pushing your elbow down with your other hand. Your elbow fore arm should be parallel with your spine for the duration of the stretch.

Shoulder strangle for ten seconds per side: extend one arm strait out in front of you. Pull it to your chest using your other hand placed over your elbow or higher.

Sitting toe touches x2 for ten seconds apiece: sitting legs extended strait in front of you try to touch your toes by bending at the hips without bending your knees. as you advance further you will be able to bend further until you can bend in half.

Strait straddle stretch x2 for ten second apiece: sitting with your legs in a split try to touch your toes pulling your body and head to the floor

Side to side saddle stretch for ten seconds per side: sitting with your legs split try to touch the toes of one of your feet with BOTH hands. Pulling your head toward your knees and your chest tward your legs

Butterfly stretches x2 for twenty seconds: Sitting with the bottoms of your feet touching and your hands on your feet pull you feet toward your groin. Then it one motion push your knees to the ground with your elbows and your head toward your feet. (some prefer to flutter thier legs up and down but in my opinion this leads to a less intense stretch. Advanced - have someone push on or stand on your knees (warning this is very advanced and sometimes dangerous without flexibility)

Ankle rolling for ten seconds each leg: Sitting with one leg strait and the other bent over it. Grab your foot with the opposite hand and roll the ankle in random motions.

Leg Extensions ten seconds per side: Sitting with one leg strait an the other bent over it grab the bottom of your foot with your opposite hand (left foot right hand, right foot left hand) extend your leg strait using your other arm to push on your knee.

Back and shoulders x5: Standing legs more than shoulder width apart, touch the ground with your fingers. Then bring your arms up making a crescent reaching behind you until your arms cannot bend any further and return to your sides, bending backwards (should be able to see the floor behind you)

Back and torso x5 : Standing legs more than shoulder width apart, touch the ground with your fingers. Then put you hands on your hip and bend backwards until you feel you are as far as possible. ( should be able to see the floor behind you)

Side Lunges ten seconds each side: standing shoulder width apart place your hands on your hips and lower one leg (stretches the other)

Deep side lunges ten seconds each side: Standing double shoulder width apart lower one leg until you can’t any more then point the toes of the opposite foot outwards

Samson stretch ten seconds per side: Interlace your fingers and raise them overhead so your palms are facing the ceiling, engaging your shoulders up and towards your ears. Next Step forward into a lunge position with the knee of the rear leg touching the ground. Finally Stretch your hands up, and stretch/sink into the lunge. Look up towards the ceiling.

Knee sits ten second per side. sitting with one leg under you ond the other extended pull your upper body down (bending at the hips) and touch the ground with your hands.

Front/Back splits stretch ten seconds each side: sitting down place one leg down in frond of you and put the other behind you splitting your legs. Your body from a birds eye view should form a strait line. strech further and further until you can split to the floor

Saddle splits stretch x2 for ten second a peice: from a standing position slide down into a split with your legs going to each side. progress furter and further to the ground until you can touch the ground with your legs being linear. Your arms may be used to assist balance.

Wrist wrap stretches ten seconds per wrist: wraping your thumb and middle finger around your opposite wrist poiint to the ceiling with the index finger of the wrapping hand, keeping your other hand perpendicular to the ground

Wrist to floor stretches, palms up for twenty seconds: sitting on your knees and feet, make your wrists touch the ground bending your palms toward your forearms with your fingers facing you.

Wrist to floor stretches, palms down for twenty seconds: sitting on your knees and feet, make your wrists touch the ground bending the backs of your hands toward your forearms with your fingers facing you.

Wrist x's twenty seconds: sitting on your knees and feet, cross your arms making an x with your fore arms and push your palms to the groundkepping your finger tips interlaced.

Edit - if there is any confusion on a stretch I will post a pic or a vid but most are pretty self explanatory and if there are any stretches to add post em and I'll put them in the top post
« Last Edit: November 05, 2006, 08:22:25 PM by Zeus »

Offline Sat Santokh

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Re: Stretches
« Reply #1 on: October 16, 2006, 05:23:46 PM »
Standing Toe Touches x2 for ten seconds apiece: stand with your legs completely strait and try to touch you toes. Advance to touching the ground then touching the ground with your fists then the palms of your hands.

I don't know if there is confusion or lack of knowledge but maybe you should explain that you don't just try to touch your toes.  In order to be truly flexible you would ideally be able to touch your head to your feet if you are doing this stretch sitting down.  You need to be bending from the hips not from the spine.  Try it and see the difference ;)

Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches
« Reply #2 on: October 16, 2006, 06:05:14 PM »
First correction. I think thats what you mean, but Im not sure.

Thanks Sat  ;D
« Last Edit: October 16, 2006, 06:11:30 PM by Zeus »

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Re: Stretches
« Reply #3 on: October 16, 2006, 06:14:33 PM »
This is sweet! I've been meaning to post an article on stretching for a while, but this gives me a better idea. This is a great template, so we should just leave this thread open to stretching info that everybody has that can be compiled into a main-page article that can be updated as-needed. :D

Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches
« Reply #4 on: October 16, 2006, 06:15:34 PM »
lol I got really sick today and had noting to do sooo.....

Offline Sat Santokh

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Re: Stretches
« Reply #5 on: October 16, 2006, 07:34:32 PM »
Where are you getting these stretches from.  I was one year away from being a nationally certified yoga instructor so maybe I could contribute some?

Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches
« Reply #6 on: October 17, 2006, 06:36:13 AM »
Alot of them are Traditional stretches from hapkido (a korean martial art)  and the rest are pretty commonly known

and sure put in all you want  ;D

Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #7 on: October 18, 2006, 02:59:35 PM »
I just did some minor editing but I will do more when I have some time. (A.P. History Homework :P)

Offline like_a_child

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Re: Stretches
« Reply #8 on: October 21, 2006, 01:29:54 PM »
Standing Toe Touches x2 for ten seconds apiece: stand with your legs completely strait and try to touch you toes. Advance to touching the ground then touching the ground with your fists then the palms of your hands.

I don't know if there is confusion or lack of knowledge but maybe you should explain that you don't just try to touch your toes.  In order to be truly flexible you would ideally be able to touch your head to your feet if you are doing this stretch sitting down.  You need to be bending from the hips not from the spine.  Try it and see the difference ;)

I noticed the difference between waist and spine when I was looking for a way to make this stretch more challenging . . . I didn't do them for a long time because it seemed pointless, and, sure enough, it wasn't difficult. I had to stand on a thick book (like, good solid textbook) to feel any different flattening my palms against the ground; if I just had to reach as far as the level my soles were on, I had so much "stretch" left in me that it wasn't even stretching me!

Before thinking of standing on something, I noticed a few other ways (besides outright height) in which my body was "cheating" . . . angle of the ankles, bend in the knees, and spread of the feet. Spreading the feet apart sideways is a split at the most extreme; see how much closer your arms are to the ground then, and you understand how any distance other than "right next to each other" is approaching that. Bending the knees all the way folds up your body and brings you closer to the ground, though only about half as much as a split, and likewise your knees have to be straight or you're "cheating" on the waist's distance from the ground. Leaning forward a bit (sort of like a toe lift, but keeping the toes where they are and still adjusting the angle of your ankles), at the extreme, would put your arms right next to the ground (although I think you'd fall over by then, center of balance and all, unless your feet were bolted down), so keeping the legs perpendicular to the surface you're standing on is important.

Even with those fixed, it was still a disappointing stretch to stand on something and try to flatten my hands against the ground. So, most recently, I've been trying to keep not only my legs straight, but my upper torso as well; the arms can move around from their shoulder joints, but other than that the only way I'm allowed to move is with my waist.
« Last Edit: October 21, 2006, 01:34:28 PM by like_a_child »
I give you this:
I will never view my fellow traceurs as a springboard.

Offline like_a_child

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Re: Stretches
« Reply #9 on: October 21, 2006, 01:50:40 PM »
This is sweet! I've been meaning to post an article on stretching for a while, but this gives me a better idea. This is a great template, so we should just leave this thread open to stretching info that everybody has that can be compiled into a main-page article that can be updated as-needed. :D

Brad Appleton's "Stretching and Flexibility: Everything you never wanted to know" - some time ago I read all of it, understood most of it, and - sure enough - much of it I didn't want to know ;)

But after filtering out most of the technical explanations, a non-overwhelming amount of useful advice can probably be extracted from it. I recommend offering a URL to it, though it hasn't been updated in nearly a decade so it should probably be reviewed to see if any of the information is outdated now.
I give you this:
I will never view my fellow traceurs as a springboard.

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #10 on: October 22, 2006, 06:10:57 PM »
Yeah, I've seen that before, and there are some other Parkour sites that reprint it as useful, but I don't really see it as so. It's great if you want to learn about the physiology of stretching, but that's more of a hinderance than anything else when it comes to actually applying concepts to a practical stretching program. Most trainees have little reason to read through that much technical information to produce a regimen, and such detailed explanation is more likely to lead to paralysis by analysis than anthing else!

Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #11 on: October 23, 2006, 09:00:18 AM »
Wow then Its good I was to busy to read it. I should be able to add some more stretches this week but im gunna be buku busy

Offline like_a_child

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #12 on: October 28, 2006, 09:26:04 PM »
Spine touches for ten seconds per side: Place one of your hands, palm touching your back, and reach for the ground pushing your elbow down with your other hand.

Is this "reach for the ground" part meant to eventually result in actually making contact with the floor? (This seems much more difficult when starting out from a standing position ;))

What about "where on the back your first hand goes"? Higher placement seems to require either more flexibility, or leaning back, for the elbow to reach the floor (I assume the elbow is the goal, since that was what you said to push down).
I give you this:
I will never view my fellow traceurs as a springboard.

Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #13 on: October 29, 2006, 09:25:20 AM »
 ??? You never actually even get close tio the ground, you should be standingthe entire time with your back strait. I was just saying that you should reach downwards, but it wuld be phisically impossible to reach the ground from that position. I didn't think this one was that confusing but ill change it.

Offline Ryan Ford

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #14 on: October 31, 2006, 12:15:56 PM »
id say you need to hit the hip flexors in their. i didnt really see anything for them and they are arguably the most important area to be flexible in. something like a one kneed kneel lunge.

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #15 on: October 31, 2006, 12:27:01 PM »
I'd probably add the Samson stretch that is outlined in the APK Warmup, very good hip-flexor stretch that works its way all the way through the prime-movers of the torso.

Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #16 on: October 31, 2006, 06:37:03 PM »
Here soon (when I don't have homework  :P) im going to add about ten more stretches from my gymnastics, which includes the stretch demon was talking about and I will add the samson stretch.

Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #17 on: November 05, 2006, 08:26:11 PM »
Updated with some wrist stretches and hip stretches. I think I got some good hip stretches but I'm not sure if these are what you mean. Also alot of these are from my gmnastics class and I'm not sure what they're called. Since alot of them are confusing I will try to start adding some pics here soon (camera blows so it may take a while).

Also I basically ripped the samson stretch from the exercise description and I hope thats ok.

Offline Nicholas

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #18 on: February 15, 2007, 07:34:56 PM »
I see the blurb at the top of the thread that says that stretches should be preceded by warmup.  Does that mean that I should warmup, stretch, then do my workout?  Or finish my workout and then do stretches?

Thanks and sorry for my ignorance  :)
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Offline Zeus

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Re: Stretches-Please add feedback for mainpage article!
« Reply #19 on: February 17, 2007, 06:08:48 PM »
Actually it is good to streatch both before and after a workout.

An average workout should be

Warmup (jog, jumprope)
Stretch
Workout
Stretch
Warmdown