SMoML

Technically, this is overdue notice since February is more than underway but thankfully my interal productivity czar is too indulgent in its macromanagement fury to notice such details. But this monthly ‘challenge’ if I dare to label such a thing:

SMoML: Stretchiest Month of My Life (Limber-est and Flexble-est were runners up, but far behind) - Each day I intend to spend at least 1 hour stretching. I’ve been breaking them up into between 3 and 5 20 minute segments. And while I have one set routine of six stretches (2 sets, 30-45s each) that is approximately 20 minutes, I also freestyle a little over half of the sessions, mainly going back and forth between hip flexor and hamstrings. I also take a more active approach to stretching in that I might tension a muscle at end-ROM (similar to PNF) for alternating bouts of 5 seconds tension, 5 seconds rest. I’ve found this helps break through those soft boundaries.

Ironically, so far, I’ve woken up stiffer than usual. And in the culprits I would expect: neck and hips. However I posit that there will be some critical threshold of tolerance to this sudden demand of maleability such that over enough time the stiffness fades and ROM achieved during a session can stick. I will say I didn’t always give stretching its due, it can be more strenuous than standard resistance training if one chooses to exert themselves, as I intend to. I also just hope that this momentary habit sticks and I reap a reduction of some chronic physical ailment (neck/hip tightness perhaps) as a reward and didn’t just add more needless compulsive behavior to my schedule.

To my eyes, stretching would be an excellent compulsive habit to do aimlessly when I am caught between items. It being of the strictly physical dimension would make it warmly welcomed it into my existing hodgepodge of productive ‘tics’. But while physicality makes it an attractive tic, it also requires an amount of internal activation energy that could drown it out as a routine option. That is the battle.

I won’t say the goal is to get to a full split (front if ever, not side), I haven’t yet determined if there are soft genetic limits to muscle and tendon pliability such that a true split is feasible for my beefy build. I’d also like to try at least one or two nonstop 1 hr stretching sessions treated more as a workout than ‘just loosening up’.

Either way, I’ve said it, so I must do it. Well, I’ve already been doing it but my conviction mutliplies, I guess.