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Head to Toe stretching


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Tonight I tried to go for it hard over my 3 sets. I managed to get within centimeters on each side!! I was so determined I did another set and tried to pull myself into it as hard as I could but I couldn't go any further! Soooooon... 

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  • 2 weeks later...

@Oliviaa: Please do film if you can.

 

@Jon: Great work. I generally tell people to let it settle for a week or two then move the leg up to bellybutton height. I'm not a huge fan of pushing for toe to chin but its horse for courses.

Thanks Emmet for the program! I did it in August and it took me 20 days to get from opposite elbow to toe to forehead to toe. Everything went well then. I took couple of days off and then started again with leg up to hip height. After first day I felt "wrong" kind of soreness in my left glute area and after three days I could not continue with the program anymore.

This problem with left glute has been bothering me ever since and rest and light stretching have not helped much. Only recently doing some bulgarian split squats have made it better somewhat.

Any suggestions how I should proceed if I want to chase this further or did I perhaps do something completely wrong? Thanks!

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Honestly with out an in person its hard to figure out. Did you feel anything pop? Or is it just pain? If the split squats are helping I'd do them for 4 -6 weeks before returning to the program in full but with some gentle testing along the way.

No pop, just a bit more pain everyday after heightening the other leg.

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I am confused about this stretch. Isn't piriformis an abductor and, hence, it would stretch piriformis more if one was to move the leg across the body instead of out to the side? I know that this is done in the other stretches in the system. I am just trying to understand the anatomy of this stretch.

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@emmet That guy is crazy #goals. I tried doing those split pulses last week after seeing that post and I couldn't even.

 

I am going to take some time off ballistics I haven't made any progress in head to toe for a month or so I'll leave it for a few weeks and come back. I'll just stick with loaded stretching in this time. From all the ballistic my isometric front and side split have become insanely strong. I can hold my end range for 3 minutes and I'm not sure how to make them harder to keep progressing.

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I haven't done any head to toe stretching to gain range in over 6 weeks now. I can still free standing standing head to toe, all be it not entirely upright, still a pretty crazy position though haha. I previously only used to try it at the end of all my bounces, so I'm pretty sure it'd be better than ever after a couple of sessions again. I plan to do it again at some point, just too busy with my final year of uni. The range really sticks around though.

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@Chris I'm currently doing a reverse Kit and haven't been doing any ballistics or bouncing bar to demo to people to see how much ROM remains. Right side is a comfortable head to toe + fist regardless of time of day but left side has had a massive drop off have to use a little pull to go opposite elbow to foot. During this time I've been doing no front folding stretching just what ever is in my training for the day. Ie press HS or similiar.

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@Chris I'm currently doing a reverse Kit and haven't been doing any ballistics or bouncing bar to demo to people to see how much ROM remains. Right side is a comfortable head to toe + fist regardless of time of day but left side has had a massive drop off have to use a little pull to go opposite elbow to foot. During this time I've been doing no front folding stretching just what ever is in my training for the day. Ie press HS or similiar.

 

This (the right-left difference) on the 'Reverse Kit' (sounds a bit like a dubious posture for sexual congress ) is actually quite intriguing..!

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I haven't really done any H2T ballistics since I 'got it' about 6 weeks ago. I did a quick check this morning and can still get to 2 fingers pretty comfortably both sides (left a bit more easily than right) with not much warm up.

 

Interestingly I also tried with my foot raised to about knee height and can get head to fist pretty easily both sides with no prep.

 

While I haven't done any ballistics in that time I have done a lot of Jefferson curls and deficit RDL's so there would be a fair bit of carryover I would imagine.

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  • 4 weeks later...

I'm going to post an update on not ballistic stretching haha. Stopped head to toe pulses about a month ago as I wasn't progressing and I was starting the final phase of my strength training program. One month off I tested just now without pulsing only by purely actively pulling myself into the stretch by my abs and hip flexors, I could hit head to fist plus thumb without much effort at all. I had the strangest thing on my right side when I did it my foot just suddenly had all these pins and needles as soon as I folded over.

 

I thought I would have lost a lot more to be honest previous active head to toe cold a month ago was head to fist plus half thumb and was hitting within centimeters by the end of my sets of the full thing. So I have lost practically nothing at all. Have just been loaded stretching upper and lower body every 4+ days each and progressing. 

 

I'm sure it would take only a few days to get back to where I was and keep progressing. Amazing how the nervous system adapts to the stimulus of ballistic/pulse stretching.

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I just started today. My left side is a little tighter than my right side, but I got same side elbow to toe on the left and same side elbow to toe and opposite elbow to toe on the right. :)

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Update 2: Almost 5 wks since my last update (so about 11wks post ballistics) and I can still get head to fist pretty much cold. I'd have to say that it's not a bad investment at all, 30 days ballistics and then you retain 90% of the flexibility without training it. I wish the rest of my training worked like that.

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