How Can I Become More Flexible?

An odd question coming from a guy, but despite all my efforts, my muscles just seem to recoil. Ideally I'd like to be able to touch my toes (without bending my knees), or be able to reach my toes while seated with my legs straight out.

Although I just turned 30, I battled pretty severe arthritis since my teens and it wasn't until I was 28 when it was finally diagnosed correctly. Turns out it was quite treatable, and this miracle shot I've been on has almost completely reversed the effects. So, in addition to losing 15 lbs since July 1st -- now 151 at 5'4" (yes I'm short) -- I've been building an increasing exercise routine.

I'm now on week 5 of the 8 week 5K training plan (7 running/2 walking). I can complete a 5K on the elliptical at a 6mph pace without slowing down. And last night I managed to pull off a 13 mile stationary bike ride in 46 minutes. Most importantly, I can bench 125 lbs (which is amazing in a month turnaround considering I could barely do 70 lbs after the arthrities had rendered me pretty much useless). Amazing I was a fastball pitcher in my early teens and then just shut down.

So I digress. Anyways, I'm feeling pretty good except when it comes to my complete lack of flexibility. Reaching down to touch my toes I can get barely to my shins, with excruciating pain under my legs (mainly behind my knees), and a bit in my lower back. This area seems to be the same limitation when seats with my legs out and trying to reach my toes. After running/elliptical I do gain considerable improvement (another 4 inches or so), but within an hour, it's recoiled.

I have no aspirations to become a gymnast, a contortionist, or have the flexibility of my 7 month old baby, but there has to be some practical stretching routines to where I can return my body to where it should be. I go to the Royals games all the time and see 30-40 year old men stretching into positions that make me cringe in pain. Granted they are pro ball players, but they aren't gymnasts either, so this has to be doable. Help!

Evan

perhaps some Yoga

I second the yoga suggestion.  If the issue is specifically flexibility, I think there's actually a DVD out there called "yoga for inflexible people", or something like that.

I am an extremely flexible person myself. If I dont stretch regularly at least half an hour every day i fond it is a bit hard to get my toes and I can barely put my hands on the floor. I think it is kind of like exercise. Like it or not some of us are better runers, swimmeers, Walkers, and bikers. But for say someone like me who is bad at running I have to run at least four times a week prefferably five or six without skipping a day in order to keep my muscles in tune to running. If I miss a day It does not bode well for my next run.

Same probably goes for you and stretching. Maybe stretch more, and more often. try to get in at least a half hour in the morning and a half hour at night of stretching. Along with stretching before and after you exercise.

I third the Yoga! Nothing is better I swear! Most bodybuilders, runners, cyclists, you name it have shortened muscles and decreased flexibility especially if you don't stretch before AND after you exercise. Doing sports like this tends to tighten the muscle and contracts it, hence why your so tight that you can't touch your toes. I didn't do any yoga for a year or so, then just started it up again the other day. I was in so much pain I could hardly even touch the floor. After warming up sufficiently though I can usually do the whole bendy in half thing no problem (forget about touching your toes - hands under the feet is where its at - what woman wouldn't swoon over that! ). You have to be regular about it though and have patience. So forget about what you hear about yoga being for women and get yourself a video or book and bust out a mat!

Yoga is great for this, but many "Americanized" forms are too intense for where you're at now.  "Excruciating pain" is never necessary, nor is it desirable.  Stretch just a little beyond your comfort zone, then hold that position for, say, 10 to 30 seconds (increasing duration as you get more flexible).  Repetition and, above all, consistency of practice do the rest over time.

Here's a very practical way to get started (no classes, no equipment, no excruciating pain, and no philosophy ;-)):

    http://www2.gsu.edu/~wwwfit/flexibility.html

Depending on style, yoga classes will add many more postures ("asanas" -- body positions), work with rhythmic deep breathing, visualization, and meditation techniques.

There are also very easy ways to incorporate more stretching into everyday life.  For example, sit just a little bit straighter when tying your shoes, stand a little farther back from the faucet when pouring a glass of water, reach a bit more down your back with the bar of soap when showering, ...  Got the idea, right?  Just be mindful of everyday activities and deliberately increase (just a little!) the range of motion you use to perform them.

hi Evan! first of all, congrats on starting your exercise program (sounds like you're making some pretty damn fast progress on the 5K! i wish i were progressing like that on my routines!).  i'm glad you're arthritis is finally under control.  by shots, did you mean corticosteroids?

my daughter used to take gymnastics (started 8 yrs ago, cont'd a couple yrs) - even though you "have no aspirations to become a gymnast" (neither did my daughter, as it turned out!), they really do manage to teach basically every kid to GREATLY expand their flexibility and a very large percentage of them are able to do at least one kind of split in a short period of time, so you may as well follow the masters, eh?

so, i know very little about yoga (sat in on a class once because i was looking for stress relief, did the moves but didn't feel stretched by the end, so clearly i was missing something), but my understanding is that the yoga poses are "static stretches" - they put you in a position and you hold it for a while and maybe go back to it after some different positions.  gymnastics instructors USED to encourage static stretching, but discovered that flexibility developed much more quickly when they used dynamic stretching* - so instead of stretching as far as a person could and holding for 15-30 seconds, they would go into the stretch, hold for only a couple seconds, pull back up (SLOWLY, not bounce up), go back down, hold for a couple more seconds, and so on - and each time they can usually go a bit further down - with your last time down, you usually hold it if you can (5-10 seconds or more, whatever you can do without pain).  i actually saw this with my daughter. she got her splits down all the way in a few weeks - if she had just held as far as she could go on that first stretch, it would not have done as much good because she wouldn't have been increasing her flexibility throughout the period of the stretch to the same degree (i was actually so encouraged by her progress that I, who had never taken a gymnastics class in my life, decided to learn to do splits, and it took me a while to get the side-split, but the front ones were incredibly easy when i used these methods).  a word on the "coming up" part - you don't want to "come up" all the way, just to where you're no longer actively stretching - so when doing splits, a girl will push as far as she can, then only come up to the point where SHE doesn't feel a stretch (but many other people would), not to the position she would be in before starting a split.  if your goal is to touch your toes, same principle applies - so you won't be coming up to the point where you're completely erect, but perhaps instead to the point where your hands are on your knees or lower thighs - you'll know the point when you feel it!

*if you google this term, you will find people are often talking about different things when they use it (things like walking lunges which aren't really stretches at all for most people).  ignore most of it.

if your lower back is hurting when you attempt to touch your toes, it's best to stretch out your lower back beforehand - in fact, if your lower back really hurts when you touch your shins, it's not a bad idea to start doing some light stretching on your lower back for its own sake (not just to increase flexibility but because you'll probably feel better in ways that you won't even notice until you start doing so). 

the reason you're able to do better after you come off the elliptical is because your muscles are WARM.  all attempts to increase flexibility will be more successful if the muscles are warm (you'll also be less likely to pull something).  if you're stretching before exercise just as an injury-preventative and so that your muscles aren't tight, it's not quite as essential that they be warm beforehand - if you're stretching to increase flexibility (in which case you really are 'pushing past your comfort zone'), you really must be warm.  this doesn't mean you have to do an hour on the elliptical beforehand - it doesn't take that long to get warm.  a couple minutes of calisthenics (jumping jacks, jogging in place, fast lunges back and forth, etc.) will do the trick - a "warm up", that is.

if you REALLY want to see some amazing progress, try stretching in a hot shower immediately after your cardio!  the hot water will limber you up further (careful though! it's slippy! i know that they sometimes have girls go in hottubs to warm up their muscles in order to improve flexibility, but my daughter never tried this).  a key to making "gains you can keep" (that is, you complain that you can go down further after your elliptical ride but the gains are gone an hour later) is (1) to make sure that you're holding your stretches sufficiently long (for dynamic stretching, that's why you want to hold your last "rep" for at least 10 seconds, but since you are really pushing yourself, you often won't be able to.  hold what you can, and afterwards, you can do a static stretch [where you'll be going down much further than if you'd just started with a static stretch] and hold for 20 or so seconds*] AND continue doing a stretch every few minutes as your muscles cool.  you will always be somewhat more flexible when you're warm, but you shouldn't be losing all of the gains you make when warm when your muscles become cold again.

* stretches are one of those areas of life where we think we're holding them for much longer than we actually are holding them.  for every 5 seconds you think you're holding it, it's more likely that you're holding it for 2 or 3 (apparently tooth-brushing is another one of these - people think they brush their teeth for well over a minute when in fact they only brush for an average of 20 seconds! that's why the better models of electric toothbrushes have those timers!) - you may want to learn to count very slowly and steadily (one-one-thousands, two-one-thousands), or just buy a digital clock with a seconds hand if this is something important to you.

i'm also not sure there's any reason for you to commit to a whole new activity that's time-consuming (and may be expensive) and seems to often turn into a "lifestyle" if your only goal is to make some (really very moderate) gains in basic flexibility (of course, if you think yoga sounds like something you'd enjoy, by no means let me stop you.  just know that it's not the ONLY way - especially if your major goal is to touch your toes.)

Wow, some outstanding replies, all of which I will definitely take into consideration.

Erinzz, the "miracle shot" I'm on is Enbrel, for psoriatic arthritis. Thank God for a great health care plan. $1400 for a pack of 4 shots became a $30 co-pay.

Your post was really powerful and I sincerely thank you for taking all the time to post all that!! For me, this stretching goal is really a long term thing. Touching my toes (or putting my hands on the floor) is just one example of my limitations. One of the reasons I switched from the treadmill to the elliptical was due to the pain I'd get in these same areas while running. I strongly feel that I was much more limber, I could go for much longer distances and not be confined to the comfort of the elliptical. Being able to do a 5K on the elliptical in 31 minutes without being out of breath tells me that I'm building my lung capacity nicely, and my "desire to stop" while running normally is really do to the gradual build in leg pain. My running form is OK (so I've been told), so the thought is that the muscle contraction from years of limited activity is the limiting factor from allowing me to "run free" as they say.

So, I'm going to target this stretching thing, taking into account all your advice. I've always associated Yoga with a bunch of Chinese Monks singing Kumbaya (ok, I'm a bit warped), but I may give that a shot if extended dynamic stretching doesn't work.

Congrats on your daughter being able to do her splits!! If I could pull that off, the possibilities are endless LOL.

Best,
Evan

Hey Erinzz...thanks for the stretch info.  I always did want to do the splits (I could in highschool, but that was a long time ago).  I may just have to try it!

hey msspeech!

you'll find they come back pretty easy - fronts are of course easier than side, and there'll be one leg that's easier than the other (for me, it's the right), but i'm naturally very flexible.   stretch your legs out well beforehand.  if you've been able to do splits before, you should be able to get the front ones just by practicing for an hour or two max.  a side split may take more work, depending on how long it's been.  do it very warm, of course.  i used to be able to do a side split then some (raise legs above ground level - really no use to this considering i'm not a gymnast except that there were fun uses for it in bed) - i can't seem to get that back though.

for me, the less muscle i have in my legs, the easier they are to do - as i get more muscle, they get more and more difficult (in the past, when i've gotten a LOT of muscle, i've been unable to do the side ones at all - not sure why that is).  i've been experiencing this a bit lately, and i haven't even put very much muscle in my leg (so it may be a 'relative gain' thing) but then again, i haven't really been practicing.  it's a 'use it or lose it' sort of thing with sides, but the fronts are always easy, and even if you can only do a front on one leg (if you've lost a lot of your flexibility, just concentrate on that), everyone you know will be very impressed!

the way the gymnast coaches are with the young girls, they believe that splits are something EVERYONE should be able to do with practice, and i pretty much believe it.  of course, they're talking about young girls without too much weight (fat OR muscle) on them, willing to dedicate the time.  still, if you want it, and there's nothing physically wrong with you, and you're not TERRIBLY unflexible naturally, it's pretty much yours.  at least when it comes to the front ones.  just go slowly and don't push too hard at first.

happy labor day! we just went water-sliding!