Picture a yoga class.
If you’re a guy, it can be a room full of beautiful female yogis, all gracefully moving from one dynamic posture to another. If you’re a female, swap out that visualization for some good looking yogi dudes. If you prefer the former, or a mix, cool, go with it.
Consider the yogic poses you’re seeing. Full body interconnected movement.
Now strip off all the clothes… Yes!
Now strip off all the skin… ok…… weird…..
What you’ve got is a beautifully connected fascial and muscular system. One part of the body influences the other. A tight hip will influence the low back. A tight chest can influence the neck. A stiff ankle can piss off a knee. It’s all connected man!
Now strip off all that muscle.
What you’ve now got is the skeletal system. A stacking of bones with their intersecting joints.
This stacking of joints is once again all connected in terms of influence. If a knee doesn’t move well it will affect the hip. If a hip doesn’t move well it will affect the low back.
The understanding that it’s all connected leads us to the understanding that we can isolate an area and then influence the rest of the body.
You can isolate a specific tissue, joint, or area of the body that may be causing a “restriction”, and then reintegrate into a full-body movement.
That’s exactly what I’m doing in that video. I’m specifically targeting some tissue with a tennis ball, or performing a specific stretch, and then getting back into some full-body movement.
You can do the same and it will drastically improve your overall “flexibility”.
I use that in quotes because it’s really more than “flexibility”, and more about nervous system modulation. Over time you can build tissue tolerance in more extreme ranges, which is mobility. I only add this because some internet fitness trolls will read this and get on his soapbox to prove his superiority of knowledge to the world.
For you, just wanting to feel better and do some more efficient stretching, just know that it’s good to perhaps do some tissue release to areas that you feel tight, and then stretch, and see if you feel a benefit.
It’s your body and your call, so see how it goes.
– Cris
