The Ready State: Mobility Training with Dr. Kelly Starrett › Forums › General › Extreme flexibility

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    • 05/11/2013 at 12:53 pm #70191
      AvatarClare Edmondaon
      Member

      Hi there everyone.

      I’m very new to Kelly’s materials…got the book about a week and a half ago. I’m 43 years old and my interest in fitness / strength started when I was a teenager with martial arts. In 2007 I started with Kettlebells and most recently I’m doing gymnastic strength training from coach Christopher Sommer’s website. Ok, enough intro. What I’m curious about is the value of extreme flexibility. The kind of stuff advanced practitioners of martial arts or yoga can display. I used to be able to do a sides splits with my feet on chairs…but of course not any more. I’m curious to know what members of this community think about that level of flexibility. Is it useful in any way? I would kind of like to be able to do a full splits again but is there really any point to this? Any input would be appreciated.

      Thanks

      Johan

    • 05/14/2013 at 4:27 pm #71963
      AvatarKent Zelle
      Participant

      Not real sure of the value of extreme flexibility, but from what I understand, too much flexibility could be caused by several reasons and can leave your joints with too much range of motion that you have to control in order to get in the proper position. To much or not enough- still doesn’t change the proper positioning of a skill, but I’d think that more is better so you can atleast get there. A fitness blogger (Joy Victoria) has dealt with too much mobility and flex in her joints and mentioned what a pain this was to manage. I don’t have enough flexibility in most areas and I so desire it!

      I wish I could do splits too. Doubtful at my stage but I have made HUGE progress with mwod. It’s like an owner’s manual to my body! 🙂

    • 05/15/2013 at 5:16 pm #71966
      AvatarClare Edmondaon
      Member

      Thanks for the reply. Like you I’ve made big gains following Kelly’s materials. From what I see his material helps all athletes. That’s why I’m wondering how he would go about helping athletes that require a great deal of unusual flexibility. I’m thinking of people who do wushu, gymnastics, etc.

    • 05/21/2013 at 11:39 am #71991
      Avatarchristy hicks
      Participant

      Hi Johan

      For what it’s worth, I’ve heard the call/response to Kelly’s Q ‘How much ROM do we need’ as ‘All of it’. So, we all should be accessing all the available range from our joints. The crucial thing is that we need stability through that range as well – so I might say that there’s no such thing as too much flexibility, there’s just a problem if there’s a lack of stability. Hypermobiles therefore need more stabilising work than the stiffer ones amongst us, who need more mobilising work.
      There’s a MWOD video on hypermobility from a month or two back. To paraphrase (seek the source, though) Kelly was suggesting that sliding surface mobs would be much more appropriate for hypermobiles than the joint capsule mobs that I love…
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