Stretching

Anyway. Better late than never, I'll start by discussing the importance of stretching, always emphasizing how crucial it is to training and that it should never, ever be skipped.

Before I go into presenting the stretching positions for different body parts, let's establish the fundamental law of stretching's beneficial effects, which, unlike our constitution, will never change.

By regularly performing stretches, we will:

1. significantly increase our performance,

2. radically reduce the risk of injuries,

3. avoid muscle soreness, meaning we won't experience muscle pain as intensely,

4. speed up body regeneration,

5. relieve stress, thus preventing us from becoming frustrated assholes.

I learned a long time ago that women have a special language that we need to speak. That is, if I want the message to get through and for them to understand that I mean well for them and I don't write anything unnecessarily.

In the hearts of women, yoga and all its forms hold a particularly important place. They like it, they consider it important, and they are a thousand times more likely to go to a yoga class than to any other kind of training on Earth. This kind of spiritual alignment, spirituality, the attraction to intangible emotions is inherent in women, and while a man is just a body, women are nothing but soul. And yoga is soul, so women can perfectly become one with it, and that's precisely why they love it.

Now comes the point.

Yoga is an advanced form of stretching. Yoga originated from stretching; stretching is the foundation. Stretching was invented by ancient Shaolin monks who discovered that their meditation, which they performed several times a day, strictly alone in the depths of a forest or on top of cliffs throughout their lives, was much more effective if they performed it by placing their bodies in certain positions, i.e., by stretching.

That's why Shaolin monks don't just sit in a chair and close their eyes to engage in mental union; instead, they free their spirits by stretching their bodies, meaning placing them in various positions.

Because this is precisely what it's about: you have to free every part of your body. You have to free it so that your soul can also be freed, thereby achieving much more mentally than if only your body were working. Living in the consumer society of the 21st century and crammed into big cities, of course, we no longer understand this. Our lives are so hectic that we can't even go 20 minutes without our phones, let alone meditate for hours in introspection.

Today, we can no longer explain the importance of stretching by saying that it elevates you to a higher mental level, thereby improving your physical development. No. The buzzwords have degenerated, and perhaps, but only perhaps, the buzzwords that matter are what we need to do to develop our bodies. Mental development is not an option nowadays, yet if we knew that without developing our inner selves we would truly achieve nothing, then everyone here would pay much more attention to their inner harmony.

They don't give a damn.

No time, too much work, too much stress. People nowadays can't even sleep properly, let alone get into a state during the day that doesn't resemble a civil war in their souls.

In short, stretching is important. It is important for body development, for soul development, and for mental strengthening.

I dedicated exactly this many characters to persuasion. Anyone receptive to any kind of life quality improvement will, after reading these lines, at least try to focus on stretching before and after every workout. And for those for whom even this was not enough, they will continue to disregard stretching as much as they never particularly cared about what is useful for them or how much it could improve the flow of their lives.

To make your stretching effective, you need to learn 4 things:

1. Breathing

2. Dynamic stretching

3. Static stretching

4. The positions themselves

Now, I should summarize thousands of studies and correct breathing techniques in a few sentences, which I will do without any problems.

You inhale deeply, and when you perform the movement, i.e., when you load the given body part with the stretch, you exhale. When you have assumed the stretching position – you know, when it hurts like hell – you stay there for at least 30-50 seconds. But this "at least" really means that this is the minimum. You don't need to bother with 20-second quickies.

Dynamic stretching means nothing more than warming up our bodies BEFORE training. Ankle circles, knee movements, waist circles, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and finally neck movements. Prepare your body for movement, get the blood circulation going a bit, and raise your heart rate.

We are here for static stretching; this is what the stretching series is about. And now, divided by body parts, the various stretching exercises will be presented with correct positions, aided by graphic drawings.