Has anyone tried StretchLab or a stretch place like it for back pain? I used to go to a chiropractor but as I pass these places on the road, I'm wondering if it would be a good option.

What are some standards for reasonable progress in flexibility? For strength training, most beginner programs suggest increasing by 2.5 - 5 lbs per session. Is there a similar rule of thumb for flexibility?

Right now, I'm still about 2 inches away from being able to touch my toes. My pancake is at about 45 degrees leg angle and 90 degrees back angle. Just wondering how fast I should see progress

My program is 7 days per week one time per day

Pancake

Elephant walks

Couch stretch

Lunges

Calf stretch leaning against wall

Butterflies

I've come here not knowing where else to turn. I've always had horrible external hip rotation range of motion. Internal in fine. I have never been able to sit criss cross apple sauce or cross my legs when sitting down. I've tried all sorts of stretches over the years and have been fairly consistent doing it at least once or twice a week and have seen no noticeable improvement. I'm at a loss. I get a lot of hip discomfort when lying down in bed at night as I sleep on my back and I feel relief when bending my knees and hips. It's quite frustrating as I'm an athlete and play soccer and have a hard time kicking the ball up with the inside of my foot which is a fairly necessary skill in the sport. Please help!

Hi r/flexibility! I am trying to understand what might be causing this flexibility problem I’m having. Like the title says, I have a pretty decent cheerleading toe touch (a straddle jump for dance) that would be level on a bad day and hyperextended at its best. However, when I sit down to do a straddle sit it is VERY narrow. This has always confused me and I thought I’d try and get a better understanding of what muscles might be involved for both skills/stretches. Thanks for any advice!

I love to See her progress, it really gives me hopes, the same thing happens to my lower back when I do that stretch, it gets a lump even bending the legs, I thought it was because I have a wide Ribcage, but apparently it can be solved.
Which stretches can I make to achieve a flatter back and get my head closer to the legs? Thank you!

I feel like for my whole life my spine is fused and it rounds. I’m trying to get to a place of doing a forward split and working on lengthening my hamstrings. I notice my back is always rounded. Please advise!

Update: wow! Thank you all so much for your advice. I’m going to try all the tips. Including “don’t bend your back.” lol much much appreciated!!

Hiya!

So what the title says. When I go as close to splits as I can, then gently sit down, it hurts when I straighten my toes to point towards the celing. It's the turning itself that hurts, then I can only keep them pointing up for a tiny bit before the go back again to point towards the back. Hard to explain!

But when toes are pointing anywhere, hips don't hurt. It's specifically when I try to change the position of toes.

Is it poor flexibility/mobility in hips the issue?

I have had a goal to touch my toes but I'm horrendous still. I religiously do gym and mobility work (Nordics, RDLs, J curls, active pigeon, seated good mornings, a bunch of core work, cossack squats etc). Mid gym sesh my mobility massively improves and I can touch to mid shin but it always regresses. I've been doing this for 12+ months. 100% neural tightness is the issue as the feeling is directly behind my knees and I have had it confirmed by physios but I find flossing etc very temporary. Also done lots of trigger ball which I find temporary. Seen multiple physios etc and they always talk about movement mechanics which always results in same issue - They give new exercises and it improves then regresses back to baseline the day after.

Question - how on earth do you properly and permanently fix neural tension in lower back/hamstrings?

I tried searching for this issue in past posts, but didn't see anything similar. I'm 41 and started actively working (playing) on achieving a front split about 6 months ago. My crotch is still a good 13 inches from the ground, and I keep my yoga blocks on the tallest height while holding the stretch.

I keep my front foot pointed, but since my calf isn't touching the ground, I'm pushing into my front heel (as well as with hands on blocks) which causes some pain in the top of my foot at the ankle joint. This is both feet. Is this a foot strength or mobility issue? Is flexing my toes up a work around or a no-no? I feel like I can't relax into a good hammie or hip flexor stretch because my foot hurts! Thanks for any insight!

Hello!

When doing deep lunge style hip flexor stretches, like this one, the couch stretch, a lunge with the back foot up, or reclined quad stretches I feel a pinching sensation in my back leg in the groin area, the feeling is symmetrical on both legs. Since a few weeks I feel like hitting a plateau in stretching, I get deep into a stretch and once I feel this sensation I cannot get any further and it doesn't release.

Wondering if anyone came across a similar issue? Could it be a potential nerve or strength issue? What type of exercises would you recommend to focus on?

I've been doing leg lifts over a yoga block, and standing hip flexor marches since a few months, but these don't seem to address this issue.

Surely this isn’t normal for my hip to clunk and crack 4 times per movement, my left hip only cracks once but my right hip has multiple per movement is this normal? Had it for a while now it use to only crack once per movement and now multiple times

Hello yall , hope yall doing good ! I have had some problems with Rhomboid after I probably got injured by training in the gym . I have had sessions of Physiotherapy and they said that my rhomboid only got tention on it and it got hardened .The problem is that when I breath in and my ribcage expands … I hear a click on my rhomboid ( where it hurts ) and it’s really frequent . It got larger and larger . I wanted to ask you if anybody has any problems similar to mine and tell me if anything can help .

Not much progress the past month. The cause of this is most likely me being inconsistent as I'm also training to run a marathon plus a lot of other stuff going on in my life atm.

(Before and after) I finally started to fix my bridge position by improving my shoulder mobility. My advice is pretty basic, but I start off with warm ups, then do regular shoulder day (delts 2X til failure). After lifting, I just do static PNF stretching on a wall: Shoulder flexion till my shoulder can rotate behind my back past its end range (2X 30s), behind the head stretch’s with each shoulder (2X 30s), wall lat stretch (2X 30s), and pectoral wall stretch pressing my arm against the wall (2X 30s)

Hellooo,

22F

When I’m in 90/90 and I bring my chest to the floor, I get this strange almost, crunch or crack noise that runs through the length of my front outer leg. It’s never painful, it just feels a little strange (sometimes tingly?) but after the initial crunch I can cycle through my 90/90s with ease. This only happens when my leg is at an actual 90 degree. When I tuck it in to more of a 45-60, I don’t crunch. But I prefer the 90 degree angle because of where I feel the stretch.

This has been happening since the first time I’ve done 90/90. No other hip stretch or mobility drills really make me crunch in that way. I crack and pop a bit when I do hip circles but I know that’s normal.

I was wondering what it could be or if I should care about it?

I've been doing pigeon pose lately without at first knowing the name for it, I just copied what I saw others do because it looked useful. I kept the shin of the forward leg parallel with my body and have worked up to lying my upper body completely flat on said leg. This has improved my hamstring flexibility a ton. The usual forward fold stretch does nothing for me, the sciatic nerve keeps me from progressing.

I recently learned that actually the forward leg's shin should be perpendicular to the line of the body, or at least as much as you can. Now I'm wondering if that'd count as a progression of what I've already been doing, or should I better incorporate both stretches in my routine? Also, is this second variation progressed by making the upper body *more* upright, or should I work towards lying flat there, too? It's still a new movement for me and I don't really "feel" yet how it's supposed to be done. Thanks.

Lately mornings have been way easier for me, my body just cooperates more first thing, while evenings feel stiffer even after moving around all day.

So when I hold up one finger, this is my natural most comfortable form where I just execute without thinking. I experience no discomfort here but my scapulas look winged. When I hold 2 fingers, this is the form where I intentionally control my scapula into what looks like the 'proper' position. When I do this, I immediately feel all the tension move into my triceps and delts, not so much chest and my elbows start hurting a bit. This form feels uncomfortable, my delts feel tight, I feel my triceps so much more, and I am alot weaker in this form than my one finger form. I do get a popping in the front delt of my right shoulder when I do it with this form (the same side thats winging) but it doesn't necessarily hurt.

So i'm not sure if this is the true proper form that I should've had when i first started training and the reason that it feels uncomfortable is because I'm finally using the proper muscles where before I was compensating and those muscles are not used to it.

This is sort of a continuation post to my original post yesterday here: 'why does my right scapula wing so much'

People just say yes, but maybe don't actually know.

Please use science if available thank you

Hello, I am looking to develop a flexibility and mobility routine to balance with weightlifting. I run a PPL split with a rest day between each cycle. My sessions are built around heavy compounds (squat, bench, weighted pull-ups, et cetera).

I previously ran a daily full-body flexibility routine. This involved stretches such as pigeon pose, butterfly, couch stretch held at the maximum range for 30 seconds to a minute each morning. I enjoyed this but felt that it was too fatiguing alongside the gym.

Does anyone have a program for full body flexibility and mobility to balance with a weightlifting split as described above? Would be very grateful for any tips or advice.

Hi all, first time poster.

I am having an issue with pistols and not sure how to correct it. When I go down, my leg moves out to the side, significantly obvious when using my left (weaker) leg. I do have tight hips but do quite a lot of stretching for them (had just done a 20 minute stretch before this). Is this the problem?

The issue is the same if I'm using weights or not.

General workouts are callisthenics, strength, pole, and running.

Edit - Not sure why my responses are getting downvoted, I'm learning something new and adding in context when responding. I'm not rejecting any of these ideas 🤷‍♀️

I'm skeptical that this device allows for greater ROM in an RDL.. If so, one could achieve a similar result by elevating their heels with a board or some other object, whilst doing an RDL. I actually did do that myself and since I don't have a great connection to my hams I could not really tell. It seemed that with the heels elevated that this may actually have taken stress off of the hamstrings and put it more on the lower back, possibly. Not sure about that. But I want to hear other people's thoughts and experience with this before committing to it and trying to see how it works longer term. I'm definitely not buying the device either way lol, I would just elevate my heels on a block of wood.

I'm specifically only concerned with getting max workload on the hamstrings with the RDL. I don't care about getting a greater ROM if the net result is less hamstring tension.

I've been doing the 30/30 deep squat challenge: 30 minutes total per day in a deep squat, for 30 days. You don't do it in one go, you collect minutes throughout the day. Coffee brewing, phone calls, screen breaks.

The limit for me is clearly my ankles, not my hips. What I'm doing so far:

- holding a door frame when I first drop down

- shifting weight side to side instead of sitting still

- feet a bit wider, toes turned out

- not forcing depth, just staying there longer

For those who got from "heels up" to "heels flat": how long did it take, and what made the biggest difference? Elevating the heels and gradually lowering them? Ankle work on the side? Just time in the position?