The purpose of this page is to describe a typical weekly stretching routine for someone working towards front and side splits. The program is designed to maximize the results, while minimizing the time spent stretching. If you have more time available, then by all means do more.
The most important point about flexibility is consistency. Doing a little every day is better than doing a lot once a week.
A typical day should follow this format:
Morning:
- Do some general joint rotations, followed by a really light warm up. You should not be breaking a sweat, just making sure everything is moving OK and you feel like you’ve woken up.
- Perform a single set of 10-25 reps of rear, side and front legs swings, as described on the Dynamic Flexibility page.
Evening:
- Warm up by doing general joint rotations, followed by some form of aerobic activity for at least 5-10 minutes. Make sure you’ve broken a sweat before you move on.
- Perform a single set of 10-25 reps of rear, side and front legs swings, as described on the Dynamic Flexibility page.
- Perform the Splits Stretching Routine described on this site.
If you do any gym work or martial arts training, this should be done before the evening stretch, and can be used in place of the warm up.
Within this format, there is some daily variation of the intensity level used during the isometric contractions in the splits routine, as described below.
- Monday: Medium intensity.
- Tuesday: Maximum intensity.
- Wednesday: No isometric contractions.
- Thursday: Medium intensity.
- Friday: Maximum intensity.
- Saturday: No isometric contractions.
- Sunday: No isometric contractions, or have a day off entirely if you need it.
Using this routine, you only perform PNF stretches four times a week, and vary the intensity so that you have enough time to recover.
On the days with no isometric contractions, you should perform the sames splits routine, but rather than using PNF, simply hold a relaxed stretch for the same length of time it takes you to complete your normal PNF set. If you really want to, you can perform very light PNF, but only if you don’t feel tired from the previous days heavy session.
Cheers
Tim…