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Flexibility

ZZuluZ

New member
[Sorry for the many threads recently, guys]

Lately I've been doing some thinking about adding some stretching to my routines. I know next to nothing about stretching which is why I'm enquiring about it.

I feel it could really help my lifts, especially my squat. I can squat 200 pounds, but even with NO WEIGHT I feel really tightness when I squat all the way down. I can barely touch my toes and I'm only 5'7.

I'm willing to spend my off days doing stretching and stretching during, before or after workouts.

Any help is really appreciated. Do any of you guys stretch, btw?

Thx,

-Zulu
 
Stretching

Stretch on your off days and after your workouts. If you want you could add stretching as extra workouts. Don't stretch too much before a workout. Also, you don't want to push too hard while stretching at first. It's easy to tear something or pull it by trying to go too far. Also, don't bounce your stretches.

If you want to start, pick a few stretches and hold them for 30 seconds. Do this 3 or so times a week. Try to increase flexibility gradually.
 
Pick a stretch for every muscle that you can think of. You don't have to really push them...just stretch them regularly. If you are interested in doing the splits...then you will need to push them. For basic agility...just keep them mobile.

B True
 
Does have any websites illustrating the best stretches? Or any basic stretch routines I can basically just follow?

Thx,

-Zulu
 
being able to touch your toes is good, but you don't want to go nuts on the stretching, and never stretch before lifting. I mean never do it.

Pavel Tsatsouline wrote a book called "Relax Into Stretch" probably a good book on stretching. That guy is a stud.

I am serious about the not stretching before lifting. It will ruin your squat. So will being able to do the splits. I say this from personal experience. I have been able to do the splits since I was about 14 years old. During my years as a competitive full contact karate fighter, I overstretched my hips, and tore up my shoulders and hamstrings to the point that it has made powerlifting more difficult than it already would be. I squat more now than ever, but I am less flexible than i have been since I was 13. With a warm up, I can still do the splits, but for years I could drop into the splits at any time, either way.

Proper squat form will cause you to feel tightness in the bottom of the squat even without weight. This is true in your hip area even without any weight.

B
 
Very interesting Brian...thx for the info.

So I guess my unflexibility isn't really a problem then? Do you recommend I still do it, and it woul be beneficial to my lifts?

-Zulu
 
i recommend you do some stretching.. for me, doing deep squats and heavy sldl , made me more flexible.. just by doing those i was able to go down and touch my toes easily now.. and since then my lifts have gone up. Flexibility ,im sure, will help to a certain degree, but if you get to a point where you are too flexible, then it may hold a negative effect on your lifting. SO imho i say doing stretching constistantly, but dont over due it and try to become as flexible as say, bruce lee.
 
i can do the splits and i have 32 inch thighs at 265lbs and 5'10

but i can barly move my shoulders to get the seatbelt when i get in the car.

go fig.

X
 
Funny you say that Exodus, I can do the splits, although I am not nearly as big as you are, like 225 at 5'7", but I have a Hell of a time getting to the seatbelt. I can put both palms flat on the floor, but I can't hardly reach my left delt with my right hand.

B
 
haha the joys of being little ::reaches over and easily grabs other delt, and reaches back effortlessly mimickng the motion of getting a seat belt in car::
 
zulu...

zulu, FYI on fast twitch and stretching, there is static and dynamic stretching. doing too much static stretching can take away from your fast twitch for a brief period of time. static stretching is like proping your leg up on a bench to stretch your ham etc. dynamic stretching ex. is A & B skips, high knees etc.
 
I'm still not sure I understand the difference between stretches? What are A and B skips and the other things you mention? :)

BTW, how can stretching have an impact on fast twitch fiber which is genetically predisposed?

-Zulu
 
Ya know the only muscles i strecth before lifting is lower body on squat day. I have too. Or i cant get loose. Nothing hard or painful just light stretching.

I stretch my upper body on days off lightly in case i have to bust somebodies ass! I am for real. Years ago when i was about 20yrs old i fought , well didnt really fight he WAS a friend back then but he was jacked to the gills about 285 lbs at the time and he got pissed at me and i didnt really know it. I was 190lbs fast and back then i was a mean ass kicking machine son! BUt this dude ( i wont name cause i still se him around) started yelling at me but at first he was joking i thought, but then started coming towards me and then took a swing. It was so fuckin slow i thought to myself ok he is playing with me. SO i was dancing around and saying come on man, swing! He was, one after the other. My god my daughter could punch faster! So ai m laughing and i think everyone thought he was kidding ...until his wife ran out to hiim and tried to hold him back he pushed her down hard, then i knew he wasnt kiddin. BUt i backed up into a shrub in the yard ( i was backing up and dnacing around raging him up) and he grabbed me and he attempted to hit me while i was in close but couldnt land really cause he was to fuckin tight and slow. By then i had 4 people pulling me out and 4 or 5 pulling him away. And to this day i swore i could never get that fuckin slow. If i knew then he was serious i would have lit his ass up at the start. Helli had just 30minutes before faught the 300lb fat ass bouncer at the club and made him tap out , and girgle blood while my boys held off the rest of his crew. SO though i dont submission wrestle anymore i wont let myself get to far out of fight condition.

Fast forward 3 years i was 23. In another bar seen i had a guy on the ground one on my back and one ran up and kicked me in the face and broke my nose. I went ape shit (i was jacked at 205) slung everybody off turned the guy on the ground around and just started stomping like an animal at his head. My wife was freakin thinking i am going to kill. He went sleep. I left and was sore as hell. I submission wrestled at the time but had layed off for about 3 months to juice up and gain size , and party! BUyt negleted my stretching and i couldnt move for 2 days after that bar room brawl.

So i healed up (fucked up nose, and black eyes) went back to the bar with my buddies. All i wanted was the redneck who kicked me in the face. I seen him playing pool he seen me and i just walked up and cracked him. I hit this mofo HARD. His feet came straight out and he landed on the back of his neck. His buddys jumped up and my boys handled that quick. I looked at him to check for a pulse and not only were his teeth gone but so was the upper front part of his gums. Point is i hadnt stretched then either and i fucked my shoulder up hittin that white trash i couldn tlift or wrestle for 2 plus months. Why? i was too tight. I know dum reason to stretch, but i got about 20 more stories were my stretching came in handy. I dont fight too much these days , depending on the situation i will walk away, not only that if i am out numbered i carry a Glock model 30 .45 calibar every where i go. 3 or more bad asses approach me , i will shoot! Maybe not but if i feel my life threatened then BANG!

But i dont stretch upper body at all before lifting. Sorry so long i like remenissin!
 
zulu

they are genetically predisposed, but how do you think you stretch and mess with the fibers? the same concept in where you develop the fibers by training and lifting.
 
Ok, I agree; fast twitch fibers can be altered through weighlifting and other means, I just don't understand the physiology of how stretching can 'take away from your fast twitch fibers.'

Very interesting...I'd love to learn why.

-Zulu
 
Jimmie Dean keeps me in line. But dotn let his easy going demener fool you. I wont say what he does for as living, but the man along with a buddy of mine grapple people down every day! He needs decaf!

I was young then, and i would say a bit on the mean side, but i really have changed. I dont go to bar slike that anymore. And the people i mixed it up with were looking for it anyway. Last year got into 3 fights that were stupid and i swear i will walk away from an incident that can truly be avoided. I am very nice, and friendly , and i am helpful. And those day sare over...unless!

But back to the subject, i think light gentle strecth is good. You need to be some what flexable. There have been times i have pulled muscles around the house cause i was too tight. 2 weeks of no strecthing and i am tight as a drum. I myself like to feel loose and not bound up. Even though i am!
 
Jay, you and I should swap some stories some time. As you and maybe a few others on the board know, I was involved in full contact open karate through college, and I was also a bouncer at 3 different bars. I honest to goodness stretched every night before and sometimes during work. I have probably been in somewhere close to 50 real fights, and well up into the hundreds of matches and if you count sparring sessions into the thousands of fights. It is amazing how slow most people are.

When I first started bouncing I was using karate techniques on people, and was knocking the shit out of people, which the crowds always got a big kick out of, but the problem was that I was constantly breaking my hands and toes. I broke one toe on a guys nuts. That fight ended in a hurry. He was about 6 foot 5 and 240 lbs, did not know shit about fighting, but still thought he was going to take care of this 5 foot 7 185 lber in front of him. Wrong fucking answer slim! He crawled out of the bar puking his guts up, and I limped around for a couple of weeks with a broke toe.

After I broke my hand for the third time from hitting guys in the head, I took up grappling with a passion, and knocked out a shitload of people without having to tear up my hands and feet punching and kicking them. It is amazing how quickly a guy stops fighting when he has no air. And you can really direct a man's momentum effectively if you have a finger about two knuckles deep in his eye socket. I guess the moral of the story is that it is best to fight dirty, and not fight like you are in a movie.

The moral to the story is, though that being fast and flexible, while also being strong and knowing what the hell you are doing can give you the potential to take care of yourself in a fight. Oh and Jay, I have a .45 myself. It is like the american express card.

B
 
Ya know Brian if fighting is what your main sport is you become accustome to that life style. Physique and other wise. Your body is geared for fighting. Now even though i started my early life of dreams of being a fighter, it just wasnt in the cards. Beside really accidently finding myself in my first meet and totally faling in love ,and also becoming obsessed with getting as atrong as possible, it clashed with grappling. So like i said even though i will not ever fight ina sanctioned bout ever again, i will i am sure have to punch someone out again one day. I hope not. But in the back of my mind keeping loose and strecthing and shadow boxing and even banging the heavy bag is really just instinct at this point. I know how big ass weight lifters can easily be exposed for being big and slow.

One of the easiest ass kicking i gav eout was to a guy here in my town. He was a repeat Mr lakeland Bodybuilder. At the time i was grappling 3 times a week, and pumping iron 3days a week. He was getting ready for a show, and long story short, i pounched him but not hard enough to knock him out. It was just a tap to humiliate him, and bust his lip. Well his first instinct was to grab me in a headlock, and i seen him coming in for the lock , so i let him have it. Well grappling was my forte. Anyway he was suplexed (beautifly i might add) into the wall were i continued to pound this dude to hell and back. I ended up collapsing his wind pipe with a front guillitine choke. His size (though not that big) being so tight and stiff really hurt him badly.

He was too big and slow! It seems like most of my fight are with other weight lifters. last year i traded hits over supebowl tickets with a 240lb BB and it lasted maybe 15 seconds. he couldnt not throw quick enough, he was KO'd , and i got fired from work. He trains at my gym but havent seen him since court. Were cool now. I appologised with lots of sincerity. I was wrong.

Lets hear a good one Brian. A knock down drag out!
 
well............ im not brian and i have never been in competitions for fighting or have i ever bounced.......... my loved ones keep me in check though.

i use to be a little thing.

i graduated less than 3 years ago at 160lbs at my current height of 5'10............ and that was the most i had ever weighed at that point.

i have always had a mean streak in me........ genitics.......... my father was a cop for 25 years in a bad bad section of alabama.

i have heard stories from him and some of the people who he has beaten to a pulp........( a couple of them with a nightstick........ouch)


but my brother was always a big boy......... he was 6 ft tall in the 6th grade and over 200lbs........... he had better be lucky he was so much bigger than me too.............

a couple of times he had to sit on me for 45 minutes using all of his energy when i was in junior high............ he told me not to long ago that he saw the look in my eyes....... and was afraid......... he knew if i could have gotten up i would have done everything i could have to kill him.......... litterally......... and at the time......... i was so mentally eraged that i would have done it.

i did a couple of things to him over the years though that i am proud of.......... like stabbing him in the shin with a pear of needle nose plyers......... and i put a bb gun up to his arm and pulled the trigger point blank

but the only really ass kicking story i have is this.............. when i was in the 6 th grade i was 110 lbs and this kid who was 2 years older talked some smack and grabbed my throat with both hands................ and thats all it took to set me off........... i cominced to swinging and beating the hell out of this kid........ the coaches let us go at it for a while......... but then with the last blow i hit him so hard that i took his mouth into his teeth.......... he had to have 10 stiches total inside and outside of his mouth.

funny........... once you kick someones but like that......... first....... he is now your best friend.......... and no one wants to fight you?

hmm?

but now im 265lbs..............im glad i am a lot calmer.......... but at least once a day........... i have the urge to get into an all out brawl.......... well not everyday......... but i sure is fun.......... no better adrenaline rush

X
 
Good story. I am 10 yrs older then my bro so we didnt have that kind of relationship. Probably good i guess. He is bigger then me and if we were 2 yrs apart he would dwarf me. He is just tuned 17 and is 6'5 and 285lbs. I at 17 was 5'9 or so and 165 to 175.

Your right though sometimes a good brawl does wonders. My wife and close friends know i get a 1 year itch. This Aug will be 1 year that i fought someome so i am good now but come summer...! LOL Problem is these days they end with brutal endings. You cant find someone like you , who doesnt like you and agrees to a fight. It aint highschool anymore. I will use some calamine lotion for this up coming year itch i get!
 
Jay, I have seen and been in some good ones.

When I worked at Ken Lance Sports arena I was 19 years old, and the first really big fight I saw, I was right in the middle of. It was a cowboy bar, and the fight got started in the parking lot at about 2:00 am, and went off and on till 4:00. I think I locked horns with 5 or 6 different people that night, knocked one kid out by slamming him on the ground, lost my shirt, and a little hair. It was a scene. There were probably a hundred people in the fight, it really looked like something you would see in a Western movie where the whole saloon starts fighting. Pretty cool to see.

A little blood and guts. This one is breif but bloody. We are in the parking lot trying to break up a fight, when this dumbfuck grabs one of my bouncers, I pulled the guy off, shoved him away, and told him to take off. Well as I said he was a dumbfuck, and decided that he wanted to get involved again. I decided this guy needed to go to sleep, and I grabbed him from behind in a great choke. Now remember, I am short, so I had to pull him to me a bit, and he, not wanting to be choked out, shoves backward, trying to make both of us fall, and at the same time starts to bite me on the wrist. I quickly decided that I was not fond of getting bit, and that I damn sure was not going to wind up on bottom if we fell, so I whipped him around, put the back of his head in my chest, and dove forward, driving his face into this big ass rock we had sitting in the gravel parking lot. That dude lost every tooth between his canines on top. He came up spitting chicklets out, but decided that he had had enough and went home.

There were a couple of people that I knocked out that I thought I had killed. Pretty scary stuff, thought I was going to have to move to Mexico and change my name to Jose.

One more and I will let it go for now. My wife had come to the bar on new years eve about 5 years ago, so I was 21 or 22. I was breaking up a fight on the dance floor, and I was interrupted in my duties, so I did a turning jumping migari kick, which planted the dude on his ass, and left a really cool Doc Martin print across his chest on his yellow shirt. Well my wife wanted to see the action and was pushing through the crowd to watch me fight. Unbeknownst to me at the time, while she was trying to get to me, she got into it with this really tall fucker in an OU hat. He shoves her and calls her a bitch. She lips off to him, and he lips back, and things went from bad to worse. After my very brief fight on the dance floor, I instructed the other bouncers to drag my buddy in the yellow shirt outside, along with the guys whose fight I was breaking up. I politely asked them if they wanted to roll, at which time all 3 decided to go home.

When I get back in the bar, my wife is in tears and is freaking out talking about this prick who had shoved her. I turned my hat around backward and told her to point him out to me. Now at this point I decided to be diplomatic about it, and just let the guy go if he aplologized. After we found him, I asked him if he recognized her, he said yes, I asked him if he wanted to apologize for pushing her and calling her a bitch. He apologized, but that was not good enough for my wife, she starts in on him with "where is all that tough talk now, fucker, you were a bad-ass, pushing me around when my husband was not here" at which point he decided to say, "fuck you", well, he was standing to my left, and she was standing to my right, and between fuck and you, I hit him with a hook hand, trying to hit him in the throat. Because of the strobe lights, my aim was a little bit off, and it is good for all concerned that it was, because I would have torn his windpipe all to hell, but instead I hit him on the collarbone, and caused this guy to turn a complete flip over a bar table, and land on his feet, still holding his beer, which had poured all over him in the flip. He did not stay on this feet long, though, and I got him on his back, and proceeded to feed him knuckle sandwiches. A couple of new bouncers we had just hired for the night, and did not know me real well cam up and grabbed my arms and pulled me to the side, so I was forced to improvise and began raining axe kicks down on this guy 5 or 6 times until they were able to drag me away. I wish I had a video of this guy turning that flip and landing on his feet, I swear it was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

I will throw in another one here and there, but as you can see they take up a lot of room, so I will be sparing with them. But remind me sometimes, I have a few good ones involving knives, guns, and shit.

B
 
Hell ya the good ol days! We need to every once in awhile go over some to get blood flowing. I myself will throw some in from time to time.

Anyone else?
 
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