I was a little disappointed in this lesson, virtually all the Hamstring stretches require a partner to do them and as I am training alone, these wont be of much use to me in my splits training. He did demonstate one that can be done solo and apparently it is the king of hamstring stretches so at least I got that. It just seems like a waste when you watch a 40 minute lesson and the first 20 minutes are of no immediate use to you.
What was good was his explaination of the differences between demonstrations of flexibility and developing flexibility. Actually I've never heard this explained before so even though I was a little disappointed in general I still did get some new really valuable information, i'll explain it.
Take for example the sit and reach test of hamstring flexibility.
Just because someone demostrates good hamstring flexibility in this position, does not mean it is necessarily a good way to develop hamstring flexibility. Actually it makes perfect sense when you think of it that way, so all that time you sit in a position straining and stretching may be a waste of time. Better to find a more sound and efficient way to stretch the muscle, then after you have developed greater flexibility and range of motion in the joint, you can go back to the origianl position and see the improvement.
This weeks homework is to continue the Extended Length Conditioning from last week with the light stretches and add in the additional Hamstring stretch from this week. Its really interesting to see we are at week 3 and we still arent required to do any deep stretches. I am doing them and that may be why the workouts are taking so ridiculously long...hmmm
I just stumbled across your blog today and thought I'd say hi and wish you luck. I just started learning aerial silks in January, and so I'm also working towards my splits. I'll keep checking in on you to see your progress if you don't mind being a virtual training partner of sorts :)
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