stretch pole

this platform helps the people

I started training martial arts since 16, and for 13 years I trained hard, but could never do the splits. I've tried flexibility training from ballet, different types of martial arts (Chinese and Korean), ISO (PNF), Russian military, pole dancing, cheer leading stretch pole... Researched all of them, tried all of them, even injured myself in the process. I couldn't do it. I dedicated an hour each day to do a full set of warmup, light stretches, kicks, long stretches, and nothing seemed to work.

Last year (age 29), I changed my approach near the end of the year and made flexibility a lifestyle. After work when I'm at home, I try to maximize my stretching (even if it is just passive stretching, and holding). When I'm watching TV, I'm sitting in a stretch. When I'm reading, I'm sitting in a stretch. When I'm memorizing vocabs of a foreign language, I'm sitting in a stretch. Between my body weight sets (e.g. pushups, situps), I'm resting in a split. Sometimes even when friends come over for drinks, I would sit in the splits. It's not about "I spent 20 minutes stretching today," it was more about a "stretching is life."

One month, I got my front splits down. Still working on center splits.

Now, what does that mean? Who knows. Maybe I had the wrong mindset, or maybe I had the wrong training method, or maybe I finally accumulated enough "time" to make it happen. But, I think it would be difficult to find someone less flexible than me (if you are not physically incapable of reaching splits).

Finally, there is a tremendous amount of [old people] Taichi practitioners in Asia. These people never trained Taichi prior, but after they retired from the workforce they had nothing else better to do *ahem*. Every morning, they would go to the park to train and stretch. Often times you see them put their leg up against a bar (in a stretch) and just chat with their friends and pass time. Many of them eventually attain the splits. If a retired 65 year old can do it, you're too young to give up trying.