Reddit reviews Relax into Stretch: Instant Flexibility Through Mastering Muscle Tension

I've read so many books that I honestly cannot say that any particular one is the most important. However, here's a list of really good ones:

• Starting Strength. Mark Rippetoe. I've read all three editions. The books have greatly influenced the way I lift, especially in the obvious sense of proper form for barbell lifts.
  
  
• Practical Programming For Strength Training. Mark Rippetoe and Lon Kilgore. Simple explanations of a lot of things related to training even nutrition.
  
  
• Beyond Bodybuilding. Pavel Tsatsouline. Amazing book filled with numerous lifts with the goal of using strength training to develop mass.
  
• Relax Into Stretch and Super Joints by Pavel as well. If you have issues with mobility or flexibility, these books are awesome.
  
• 5 3 1. Jim Wendler. I'm fairly certain the majority of people know what this is, but if you haven't read it, I encourage reading both editions and the one for powerlifting, especially if you're running 5/3/1 right now. All three books are a huge resource for determining how to program assistance and conditioning.
  
• Easy Strength. Pavel and Dan John This was a great read. It was filled with tons of things from articles written by Dan John as well as just a massive look at how to appropriately program strength training for people at numerous levels.
  
• 4 Hour Body. Tim Ferriss. This was an amazing read. It, like Pavel's Power to the People, was a great read on complete minimalism of training towards a goal.
  
  I've read so many more books than that. Since these are the only ones that I can think of off the top of my head, I'd say that they are the ones that have made the biggest impression from reading them.

It's simple physiology. The muscles aren't physically short, it's just that we have a thing called the stretch reflex that freaks out when we move our muscles outside a certain range of motion, and causes the muscle to contract in order to stop the motion.

When a doctor whacks our knee with a hammer, they're testing the stretch reflex. The hammer impact causes a small and momentary lengthening of the quads, and the stretch reflex counteracts it by contracting the.

What stretching does is create a "new normal" in terms of RoM for the muscle. It is a retraining of the nervous system, not the muscle tissue, and for this reason, frequency is key.

If you want to read more about it, Glorious Socialist Athletics authors Pavel Tsatsouline and Thomas Kurz have written excellent books about it.

You have two options here:

• The long one: Stretch everyday, 10 to 20 minutes. Hold every position for about 30 seconds. Do NOT bounce; bouncing is known as ballistic stretching and it as stupid as stretching can get.
  
  
• The somewhat shorter way: Isometric stretching(a.k.a. PNF), 3 times a week in addition to normal stretching the rest of the week. To give you a general idea, isometric stretching is pretty much stretching as far as you can comfortably go, contracting the muscles for somewhere between 5 to 30 seconds, depending on how hard you contract, and then letting go and try to push the stretch a little further. Hold for 30 seconds, repeat up to 5 times. It's hard, and quite uncomfortable, but it works. Relax into stretch and Stretching scientifically are the best books I know on the subject.
  
  Also, dynamic stretching is to be done at the beginning of your workout, and passive at the end.
  

I like both of these:

http://phraktured.net/starting-stretching.html

http://www.amazon.com/Relax-into-Stretch-Flexibility-Mastering/dp/0938045288

along with band hamstring stretches, couch stretch, and squat to stand.

try this book out, I got good results with it.

http://www.amazon.com/Relax-into-Stretch-Flexibility-Mastering/dp/0938045288

I don't know about specifically for Muay Thai, but I've heard great things about this book for general flexibility: http://www.amazon.com/Relax-into-Stretch-Flexibility-Mastering/dp/0938045288

Check out this guy. He has an interesting philosophy on stretching that seems to work pretty well. There are also some videos of his on Youtube you can watch for free where he explains a lot of his ideas and exercises.

Here is the mobile version of your link

See Relax into Stretching by Pavel

I really love Pavel Tsatsouline's Relax Into Stretch. Very effective.

This book was pretty interesting.

Relax into Stretch

Stretching Scientifically


If I were to buy one book about stretching, which one do you recommend and for what reason? Main one I would like to look at is the isometric stretching for side splits.