Weight training with Isometric stretching

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by danblukk, Nov 17, 2016.

  1. danblukk

    danblukk New Member

    Hey guys.

    I've been doing martial arts for a while, my flexibilty is pretty pitiful. I've only recently started stretching seriously, like nearly everyday for the past month or so. I really want to acheive the front and side slit as well as having my chin touch my knees.

    I've been using the book Stretching scientifically by Thomas Kurz, had it a while.

    My question is I go gym 3 times a week doing full body workouts and martial arts usually twice a week.
    Thomas Kurz suggest I do dymamic stretching twice a day every day and as part of a warm up and do isometric, maybe some relaxed streching after a workout/training.

    Problem is after a gym work out involving sqauts, front squats etc, my legs are quite exhuasted and I cant contract the isometric tensions that well, my legs start shaking and feel weak.
    So I've been doing them on non gym days and relaxed stretching on gym days. The stretches feel good and I can tense hard this way but this mean litteraly exercising legs everyday since isometric stretching is a kinda strength workout which Tom says can halt progress due to overtranining.

    So I currenty do leg dynamic stretching everyday, twice a day, isometric stretching every other day (non gym days) and relaxed stretching on all non iso days. I might miss a day here or there if I'm busy.
    Sometimes if the gyms too busy I just come home and do my stretching there.

    Has anybody have on advice on this? :cool:
     
  2. SWC Sifu Ben

    SWC Sifu Ben I am the law

    Firstly welcome to MAP!

    Kurz is a great resource for this and I used the same when I was younger. This is how I balanced it when I was younger and got flexible quite fast:

    Every day (upon wake up):
    Dynamic warm up
    Static passive stretching

    Every evening (right before bed):
    Isometric stretching (lightly to increase ROM for static stretching and to a single rep of 30s hold)
    Static passive stretching

    Workout days (right before bed):
    Isometric stretching (moderate intensity, final hold 2-4 times)
    Static passive stretching



    The reason I never did 100% on the contractions is a found it started to cut into my ability to generate force in both strength training and martial arts. My last bit of advice would be to make sure you're stretching in both directions for a given set of muscles. It'll help keep things balanced and I personally found I gained flexibility faster doing it.
     

Share This Page