Norm Macdonald has a great skit on naming the Fantastic Four. “You’re a rock like thing. Your name: the Thing… You have the power to make yourself invisible. The invisible woman is your name from now on… You are a human, and yet you are a torch: The Human Torch… and I Reed Richards can stretch my body like a rubber band. I will be Mr Fantastic.” 3 literal nicknames… and Mr. Fantastic. Hmph. I better learn how to stretch.
Why am I tight?
Why are muscles tight?
This is muscle memory, and.also the SAID principle. The brain Specifically Adapts to Imposed Demands. If you repeatedly demand to run, swim or swing a bat our brain adapts to that imposed demand and efficiency increases: one becomes a better runner, swimmer etc.
It also adapts to less athletic imposed demands such as sitting, watching TV, or wearing crappy footwear. From the Somatic Movement Center: “if we sit slouched forward at our computer day after day, our nervous system learns to keep us in that slouched posture by keeping certain muscles contracted, and our proprioceptive and vestibular systems allow us to get more and more comfortable in this unnatural position.”
Our bodies are maladapting at the expense of our flexibility.
KINSTRETCH
Kinstretch is a system that pushes you to the limits of your flexibility (4 to 5 minute stretches per joint); then challenges you to strengthen that joint at the end range of motion. If anything can turn me into Mr. Fantastic this is it.
My Journey
I’m decently flexible from years of consistent yoga practice, but I have plateaued. I have some major deficits (my hips and lower back). Sometimes I have knee pain when I squat low. My upper back and shoulders round forward when I squat.
I diligently kinstretched for 14 weeks. 5 days a week, sometimes an hour a day. I worked with Amir “Beard” Zandinejad through his website beardthebestyoucanbe.com. His flexibility photos were impressive. His testimonials were par excellence. If he had a superhero nickname we all know what it would be, right?
Kinstretch sessions involved warming up with CARS (Controlled Articulate RotationS) before “settling” into a stretch for several minutes. You hold your end range of motion while purposefully challenging your strength at this end range.
I worked, sweated, stretched, strengthened and waited patiently for my breakthrough.
The Breakthrough
One day I squatted low to pick up my son. He knocked me forward into a semi split position. My legs hit the floor, my knees splayed out; I waited for pain that never came.
It wasn’t luck. It was, in a word, Fantastic.
So was waking up in the mornings without any pain in my legs; even after tough workouts.
I challenged a client to go lower while doing goblet squats. I demonstrated, squatting deeply, my elbows touching my knees, my spine remaining straight.
‘Like this.’
‘Not everyone can do that.’
He was right.
And, simultaneously, he was wrong. I had to work for it though, ask for that specific adaptation. In the end I earned the right to be called Fantastic (thanks to the Beard).
Is it for you?
Are you patient, disciplined? Do you want to move better; without pain; have people call you Fantastic?
Do you ever feel trapped in your own body; Do you have to negotiate with your hips and knees to stand up/sit down? In that case kinstretch can help.
I stretched about an hour a day, 5 days a week for over 3 months to get pretty good flexibility. Some people will say I’m insane. Some of those same people practice their entire life to wake up with a stiff back, immobile shoulders and pain in their feet. They do nothing about it.
Now who sounds insane?
