What do people consider to be the correct method of incresing static flexibility?

At the beginning of each Kung Fu class we do static stretches, yet according to stretching scientifically this is not the right thing to do...anyone go to a class where dynamic stretches preceed the training and static ones happen after?

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Click

take a look at this. Not read it all though,

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Yes we do dynamic stretching early on in our kun-fu class....though we've also already done an hour of taichi before that.....we don't do static stretches at the end though.....just half an hour of sparring and a final bow!

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Nope, the reason is that traditional logic says that you shouldn't be flinging your legs through their range of motion until you've at least given them a stretch statically so they get used to it first.

I've read the book you refer to (and actually got the video here in .avi format) and actually didn't like their dynamic stretches (hip position wrong for Taekwondo kicks). The isometric stretches are fantastic though. Since then I moved on to Isometric Antagonist Stretching which was even better.

As an example of IAS, sit on the floor, soles of your feet and pull them in towards your groin. You may know this position as the butterfly position/stretch and normally push on your knees with your hands or elbows. Well, in IAS you pull your knees towards the floor using only your outer thigh muscles. You'll still feel the stretch and it works better because your inner thigh muscles don't tense up as much to stop potential damage by an "external" force.

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Our classes usually start with a 10-15 minute warmup which includes some loosening exercises followed by a little cardio exercise such as running on the spot, star jumps, squats etc.. to get the body warmed up and the heartrate up.

One of the core exercises for the warmup is to do three sets of 10 leg raises to front, side and rear each leg. You would never go straight into the dynamic stretches without the cardio first as this might lead to injury and it's always important to encourage students, especially beginners, to not push it to much to start with so they might do the first few no higher than waist height and then depending on individual flexibility, you would work from there up to your maximum height by the time you reach 10.

Depending on what we are working on in that session, we might repeat these leg raises if we have concentrated on upper body work before moving on to leg techniques.

At the end of the session, again we might do a little extra cardio or sometimes a circuit again raising the heart rate and this would be followed by another few leg raises and then some deep stretching to help improve your static flexibility.

This has been done throughout my training, starting as a beginner in 1994 and i've never had an injury as a result of overstretching in this way but i guessed it's what your body gets used to.

So long as you dont push it too much too soon and listen to your own body, you will be able to relax and get the most out of it and you will start to see both your static and dynamic flexibility improve.

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