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Copyright © 2004 by Kobus Huisamen. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Pictures by John Yoo.
To the trainers who made the most impact in my career: Steve Kalakoda, Henk Pelser and Ivan Hippolyte.
Flexibility is something we are very familiar with in the martial arts.
Different people from different styles, place a different emphasis on stretching and flexibility.
As a kickboxer, I’ve always put my emphasis on flexibility in the legs.
However, as soon as I started competing in MMA, I’ve noticed that my shoulders were completely stiff and it was easy to arm-lock or shoulder-lock me.
I didn’t need any more motivation to start stretching the upper body too.
As we grow older, we should place more emphasis on stretching, when, in fact, we do the exact opposite.
Stretching hurts and if were not stretching with other people, we’d probably have shorter stretching sessions and less often.
Take the stress off the muscles:
I also find that I stretch easier when I take the stress off the muscles.
When the stress is on the muscle, it contracts – so how can it stretch? Get it?
For example: If I want to do the splits, I can just remain upright and just spread my legs apart – hoping to go down very low.
This is difficult, because the same muscles that I want to stretch are contracting to hold my balance and keep my body up.
So, what I do is to go down on my hands first – putting the weight of my upper body over my hands.
Only then do I spread my legs open – with much more ease, because the muscles are relaxed – they’re carrying my weight.
The two principles:
We should stretch a full session (I mean total stretching) of everything at least once a week.
So, here’s the 2-rule solution:
- Stretch after training. This way your body is completely warm and you won’t be likely to injure yourself. Leg stretching is best done after a session of high kicks and upper body after a bag session or grappling session.
- Stretch in a group or with a partner. When you stretch with somebody, that person can motivate you and also push you that extra inch or two.
In this section, I’ll show you some good stretching exercises that you can do alone, or with a partner. Make sure that you have good communication between the two of you, or you may injure each other.
Figure 11.1: Pulling the shoulders upwards will give you a full shoulder stretch.
Figure 11.2: Pulling the biceps and blocking the shoulder to prevent torso rotation.
Figure11.3: Pulling down on the rear shoulders and rotating the trunk stretches the upper back and rear shoulders.
Figure 11.4: Pulling against your partner, stretches the lats and obliques.
Figure 11.5: Pushing your partner’s leg up gives more stretch than doing the splits.
