Ive embarked on a new stretching program recently to increase my flexibility. Flexibility is kind of the bastard step child of a lot of training programs, confined to a few feeble attempts to touch the toes after a "real" workout. In the kung fu world we also get a lot of "oh, in real life you never do high kicks, its too dangerous" yada yada. Thats no excuse not to have good flexibility in my book. So in order to put my money where my mouth is I've come up with a cunning plan...follow some flexy freakazoids advice.
I'm following the program laid out in Stretching Scientifically by Thomas Kurz. Now as you can see from the covershot with the author on it (right), he is certainly no slouch when it comes to stretching, and lays down all the technical aspects of stretching, different types, and some program outlines.
I've already been doing the program for about a week and a half, and already I've seen about a 15% increase in flexibility. If things keep going this way I'll be suspending myself from chairs in full split all over Shanghai. I'm also interested in finding out how to clone myself while in the full speadeagled position, but alas no tips in the book.
I'll keep posting on progress and any problems I encounter (from what I can tell excessive pain and hatred of stretching isnt a problem).