Sonia Palecek Fitness & Vitality Coaching

1️⃣Deal with the TRIGGER POINTS
Knotty, often palpable grain-like bumps under the skin (or deeper) may hold a particular part or the entire body a prisoner causing pain, restricting mobility no matter how much you stretch.

✅ I use balls, rollers, fingers, knuckles to uncover the tension points, restore tissues elasticity and pliability, improve the circulation and nutrient delivery to affected area. I also swear by acupuncture!

2️⃣VARY the stretching techniques
Your body intelligence won’t let you stretch beyond a certain point until it can trust it will not be harmed beyond what it is ready for. Which could mean you continue to feel old ‘n’ stiff and not seeing much flexibility gains.

✅ My flexibility in the past year has completely transformed! I’ve played with Passive & Active stretching, Ballistic, Contract-Relax (PNF), Reciprocal Inhibition, Activating after stretching has been super effective, for e.g. grabbing some weights and holding the arms lifted by the ears after that hanging biz.

3️⃣Use BREATH as a guide
Breath relaxes the body-mind into a stretch allowing the release of built-up lactic acid. It also gets into the areas tough to get to, like the joints of the ribcage and the spine.

✅ For a shoulder flexibility for example one thing for me was to hang and elongate the tissues, but until I learnt to soften the ribs and not have it behave like a ‘cage’ I wasn’t seeing much improvement. Explore the length and the effect of each inhale-pause-exhale...

❤️ I swear by PILATES as a form of body-mind work including stretching. Check my BIO for links to my live-stream classes.

⬆️ LINK TO ONLINE PILATES COURSE & other CLASSES IN BIO or DM ME FOR DETAILS https://www.SoniaPalecek.com/

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Applies to all type of stretching (incl hypermobile folks):

1️⃣ Stabilise and align FIRST
For every muscle fibre, fascial layer or nerve you are stretching there is STRENGTHENING occurring throughout the body, due to stabilising the joints and postural-ly aligning the body as a whole. 

✅ My core is absolutely on here so I don’t give in to my lumbar hyperextension; I had to consciously find a ‘wrap’ for my right shoulder to keep that arm up there, which allowed me a nice chest/ribs/lung stretch (my right shoulder is naturally forwardly rotated and so I am mindful of its alignment)
 
2️⃣ There’s NO isolation
The focus of the stretch might be on a hamstring let’s say, but your WHOLE BODY is participating in allowing that area to open up. 

✅ More I pull up (contract) my quads, more the back of my knee opens; I explore a lot, for e.g. do I push more through my heel or through my toes, can I send my sitz bone further back, can I get my hip to drop and square up my pelvis more, how is the leg on the floor and the upper body supporting me in opening my right hamstring etc
 
3️⃣ Go through ALL planes
Our bodies MOVE through 3 planes of motion (sagittal, frontal and transversal). If longevity is what you are after, then you’ve got to train & stretch your body through these 3 dimension. 

✅ If my pelvis wasn’t rotated to the left here I’d be stretching my right hamstring in a sagittal plane, if I was to turn my body and left leg to face the camera that would be the frontal plane and if I turned in/out my right leg or if I played with pelvic rotation that would be the transverse stretch for my hamstring.

❤️ I swear by PILATES as a form of body-mind work including stretching. Check my BIO for links to my live-stream classes.