Stretching Guides

Bigger Stronger Leaner Competitive Bodybuilding
1

I haven’t seen any articles or just picture/video guides or whatever on stretching.
I need a way to stretch everything out hardcore. I feel stiff all over, my back especially. I think stretching out the whole body would help a lot.

I can stretch my chest really well and my legs too, but I could use a better quad stretch.

For chest, I like to do either a doorway stretch:
Put your forearms palm down on both sides of a doorway and push your body forward.

OR, before doing back:
Go to the lat pulldown, put a lot of weight on, and put your arms fairly wide on the bar. I put my pinkies on the ends. Pull your body forward so the bar is behind you, so your body weight is pulling you forward. You can pull with your abs and put more tension on it.

Have your arms bent at 90 degrees, no straight, or it can mess with your bicep and you don’t want that before working back.

So let’s get a thread going on stretching.

2

What is “hardcore” stretching?

If your hardcore stretchlust happens to be related to the new DC article by Nate Green, just let me say:
DC might be good stuff, but the stretching is hypertrophy oriented.
You stretch the big muscles, those who have a decent potential for hypertrophy.
In no way this is a substitute for someone who wants to be able to do splits etc.

Anyway, to let this be a productive post, try this for quads:

get on your knees, (like when you worship the bible gawd), you sit with your ass on your heels but the balls of the feet look up to the ceiling, they don’t touch the ground, the back of the foot does.
Now, let your torso go backwards and towards the ground until your back lies flat on the pavement.

Watch your spine, you don’t want excessive lordosis here, especially if you already have hyper-lordosis (that means the exercise definitely isn’t for you).
The exercise will be quite painful first, you probably have to open your thighs a bit.
The more hardcore you get, the more your knees will come together.

As for the other muscle groups; I don’t know the exact DC stretch routines but I’ll give it a try, don’t be upset if these all already canon.

chest+ triceps- do a DB pullover, hold the stretch position.

careful with the doorway stretch, you arms should bend about 90° to take the shoulder out of the stretchin equation.

biceps- no (particularly new) idea
lats - no idea
calves - the basic stuff should be more then enough

iliopsoas - I guess with the DC principles you def. should stretch those! should influence your squat & DL -
hold the bottom part of the lunge position, chest must be up, hips must try to get in front of chest.
Hardcore bonus idea (never tried this): you could let the cable tower pull your arms back, therby helping your chest to fall behind the hips.

3

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
What is “hardcore” stretching?

If your hardcore stretchlust happens to be related to the new DC article by Nate Green, just let me say:
DC might be good stuff, but the stretching is hypertrophy oriented.
You stretch the big muscles, those who have a decent potential for hypertrophy.
In no way this is a substitute for someone who wants to be able to do splits etc.

Anyway, to let this be a productive post, try this for quads:

get on your knees, (like when you worship the bible gawd), you sit with your ass on your heels but the balls of the feet look up to the ceiling, they don’t touch the ground, the back of the foot does.
Now, let your torso go backwards and towards the ground until your back lies flat on the pavement.
Watch your spine, you don’t want excessive lordosis here, especially if you already have hyper-lordosis (that means the exercise definitely isn’t for you).
The exercise will be quite painful first, you probably have to open your thighs a bit.
The more hardcore you get, the more your knees will come together.

As for the other muscle groups; I don’t know the exact DC stretch routines but I’ll give it a try, don’t be upset if these all already canon.

chest+ triceps- do a DB pullover, hold the stretch position.

careful with the doorway stretch, you arms should bend about 90° to take the shoulder out of the stretchin equation.

biceps- no (particularly new) idea
lats - no idea
calves - the basic stuff should be more then enough

iliopsoas - I guess with the DC principles you def. should stretch those! should influence your squat & DL -
hold the bottom part of the lunge position, chest must be up, hips must try to get in front of chest.
Hardcore bonus idea (never tried this): you could let the cable tower pull your arms back, therby helping your chest to fall behind the hips.
[/quote]
Hardcore meaning I just want to really stretch the muscle all out. I don’t know anything about DC.

I need particular help with any back stretches. My rhomboids/traps are extremely stiff basically all the time. I need to crack my back constantly and take about 5 minutes stretching just my back in the morning to be able to move around semi-comfortably.

4

Artem im jealous how do i become as swole as you so that i stiff all the time?

5

[quote]Artem wrote:
I need particular help with any back stretches. My rhomboids/traps are extremely stiff basically all the time. I need to crack my back constantly and take about 5 minutes stretching just my back in the morning to be able to move around semi-comfortably. [/quote]

Foam roll the crap out of your shoulders!
i personaly had upper back pain, shoulder pains and when i started foam rolling my glutes and my shoulders all the pain went away after a few weeks. i do it every morning now.

6

Foam rolling for sure.Also do they have streching stations at your gym? The ones at my gym look like those shit rowing machines that get put out to the curb every spring clean up.One looks like a small power rack.They even have a binder explaining how to do them.

7

[quote]Kerley wrote:
Artem wrote:
I need particular help with any back stretches. My rhomboids/traps are extremely stiff basically all the time. I need to crack my back constantly and take about 5 minutes stretching just my back in the morning to be able to move around semi-comfortably.

Foam roll the crap out of your shoulders!
i personaly had upper back pain, shoulder pains and when i started foam rolling my glutes and my shoulders all the pain went away after a few weeks. i do it every morning now.[/quote]

I’ll try that. I keep hearing about this foam rolling but never tried it. Could you link a guide or something on it please? And how much are/where can I get foam roller pads?

8
9

[quote]Artem wrote:
Kerley wrote:
Artem wrote:
I need particular help with any back stretches. My rhomboids/traps are extremely stiff basically all the time. I need to crack my back constantly and take about 5 minutes stretching just my back in the morning to be able to move around semi-comfortably.

Foam roll the crap out of your shoulders!
i personaly had upper back pain, shoulder pains and when i started foam rolling my glutes and my shoulders all the pain went away after a few weeks. i do it every morning now.

I’ll try that. I keep hearing about this foam rolling but never tried it. Could you link a guide or something on it please? And how much are/where can I get foam roller pads? [/quote]

you can buy foam rollers on elitefts.

http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?cid=143

heres a good video of Defranco foam rolling and stretching his upper-body.

and heres a Article by Eric Cressey on foam rolling.

10

[quote]Artem wrote:
Kerley wrote:
Artem wrote:
I need particular help with any back stretches. My rhomboids/traps are extremely stiff basically all the time. I need to crack my back constantly and take about 5 minutes stretching just my back in the morning to be able to move around semi-comfortably.

Foam roll the crap out of your shoulders!
i personaly had upper back pain, shoulder pains and when i started foam rolling my glutes and my shoulders all the pain went away after a few weeks. i do it every morning now.

I’ll try that. I keep hearing about this foam rolling but never tried it. Could you link a guide or something on it please? And how much are/where can I get foam roller pads? [/quote]
you can buy foam rollers on elitefts.

http://www.flexcart.com/members/elitefts/default.asp?cid=143

heres a good video of Defranco foam rolling and stretching his upper-body.

and heres a Article by Eric Cressey on foam rolling.

11

Thanks a lot GrindOverMatter and Kerley. I’ll check that stuff out.

Grind, do I need to be doing DC for that stretching to be effective? Because I don’t do DC training, but if they have a good stretching program for anybody, that’d be great.

12

“I haven’t seen any articles or just picture/video guides or whatever on stretching.”

Did you ever try looking for them?

13

I have a lot of books on stretching. The best by far is Permanent Pain Relief by Ming Chew. Distant second would be Pavel’s Relax into Stretch, and I’m getting rid of all the others. I like Ming Chew’s stretches because they are THE MOST effective stretches I have ever done in that a few minutes of stretch (admittedly very difficult to do) produce permanent improvement in posture and ROM. I was also immediately STRONGER after doing them. By contrast, with other stretching I would have to spend a LOT of time stretching for a brief improvement, only to revert back to my tight poor posture a few hours later.

I also like Chew’s stretches because they all protect the spine. None of them cause you to stretch the spinal ligaments – which is NEVER good – instead of the target muscles, as so many classic and yoga-based stretches do.

Ming Chew, interestingly, is a bodybuilder, studied ART with Leahy and fascial release with
Guy Voyer, and as PT believes these stretches he developed to be more effective than ART. Having done both extensively, I agree. The stretches are way cheaper as well.

14

[quote]Artem wrote:
Thanks a lot GrindOverMatter and Kerley. I’ll check that stuff out.

Grind, do I need to be doing DC for that stretching to be effective? Because I don’t do DC training, but if they have a good stretching program for anybody, that’d be great.[/quote]

no, the articles i posted have nothing to do with DC training it’s all about why you might want to static sretch combined with a comprehensive list of what the author feels are the best stretches for each body part…of course you could of just read the arctiles and found that out though :P:P:P