Episode 635 - Martial Arts Flexibility
In this episode, listen in as Jeremy and Andrew talk about the importance of flexibility in the Martial Arts.
Martial Arts Flexibility - Episode 635
Is there any physical ability more associated with Martial Arts than flexibility? Whether it’s punching, kicking, or kata, they involve being flexible of some sort. In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew talk about the importance of Flexibility in Martial Arts and the other physical attributes that can supplement us to become more flexible. Listen and join the conversation!
Show Notes
Know more about whistlekick’s flexibility program here.
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What's up everybody, welcome, whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. Jeremy joined by Andrew, today what are we talking about? We're talking about flexibility, martial arts flexibility. Are you a martial artist? Do you want to be more flexible? I feel like I'm about to run into a pitch right there, no. Even though we do have a flexibility program, that's not what this is about. Stick around, the program is free. It's not like I'm going to steer you into buying the program, we're just going to give away all the information here. So, hang out. If you're new to the show, this is a weird episode for you to come in on, but thanks for coming. Thanks for joining us. If you want to go deeper or find out all the things that we're doing to support traditional martial arts throughout the world, go to whistlekick.com. One of the things you're going to find over there is our store. Have you been there recently? If not, you should because we're adding new stuff all the time, we swap out designs, add some new shirts or hoodies or whatever. New inventory, it's all coming around. Yeah, Andrew's pantomiming the hat that he's not wearing right now, and that's fine. It's all good. I saw it on Thursday, he almost lost it. He tried to give it away to somebody at the next table.
Andrew Adams:
I got it back.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You did get it back.
It took a while.
Andrew Adams:
I didn't fight for it either so...
Jeremy Lesniak:
He didn't have to fight for it. That would have been a fun place to have a fight, we were at a Japanese restaurant. It was a good time. I lost my train of thought. Whistlekick, whistlekick.com, podcast15. Save yourself 15% off anything in the store. whistlekickmartialartsradio.com is where you go for stuff related to this show. We bring you two episodes each and every week to connect, educate, and entertain the traditional martial artists of the world, and it's working. Because you all keep coming back. You love what we do, or at least, you like what we do, and I appreciate that. We appreciate that because we're trying to grow martial arts throughout the world and get people training, and that's why we do all the things that we do, and if you want to go even deeper if you want to show support beyond leaving a review or buying a book or something at whistlekick.com. We have a Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick and you can get in as little as two bucks a month and we've got tiers up from there. The more you contribute, the more free, cool, exclusive stuff we're going to give you, so check that out. Now, flexibility. Is there is there any physical attribute more associated with martial arts and
martial artists than flexibility?
Andrew Adams:
I don't think so.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't think so. If I ask someone, "Describe..." Especially someone who doesn't train, "Describe your imagination of what an amazing martial artist would be?" I think a lot of them are going to talk about either doing a full split or kicking overhead.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, kicking straight up.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Kicking straight up, doing some big jump spinny thing. Now, we may have some people now with this terrible sentence, Jeremy. We might have more people now talking about grappling and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. So that starts to break down that archetype, but that's okay. Flexibility is still something that a lot of us associate with martial arts, and most of us want more of. I don't know anybody who says, you know, "I don't want to be more flexible."
Andrew Adams:
"I'm flexible enough."
Jeremy Lesniak:
I'm even-- you know what, the people I know that are most concerned with flexibility the ones who are the most flexible.
Andrew Adams:
Interesting.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They want to get more flexible, it's something that they're really into. Now here's the thing, when we talk about flexibility, there's another term that I think is actually a better term that we don't use. Mobility. What's the difference? Flexibility is the ability for my leg-- for Andrew, for you to take my leg and put it somewhere. Mobility is my capacity to put my leg, myself, in that position.
Andrew Adams:
Using your own body to do it, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
My own body, right. It's the difference of how far can you-- let's say, do a split versus how high can you kick. Most people can't kick nearly as high as they could bring their leg with outside assistance.
Andrew Adams:
That makes sense.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's mobility versus flexibility. It's range of motion and what you're able to do with that range of motion. Flexibility is range of motion. Mobility is your ability to utilize that range of motion. Okay, now I went really deep on this stuff. I've spent the last few months putting together a flexibility program because... well, number one, I wanted to go deeper, myself, literally and figuratively. Two, I was frustrated with people putting out information that was wrong and I'm going to be honest, many-- I don't know if I want to say most, I think I want to say most, but I won't. Many martial arts schools teach flexibility wrong. Just flat out wrong.
Andrew Adams:
I mean--
Jeremy Lesniak:
For example--
Andrew Adams:
I mean, when I was a kid growing up in the school, we had one of those leg stretching machines, and so, you know, I brought up saying, if I want to get more flexible and be able to kick higher, I just had to sit in that machine, crank it up, spread my legs really far and just stay there for a really long time. That's how it works, right? That's what I thought.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That is a way. It is not the most effective way. Now, here's why. A lot of the things that we were taught about how flexibility works are not correct, for example, Andrew, first off, to make sure that we're not being false as I ask you this, have you downloaded and read through the flexibility program?
Andrew Adams:
I have not.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, okay so I can ask you these questions, and you're answering without having gone to the research that I put forward.
Andrew Adams:
Correct.
Jeremy Lesniak:
How does the body-- let's say, you know, the legs...? If we talk about doing a split or something, as you get more flexible, how does that work? Do you-- what were you taught about what is happening to the body as you become more flexible?
Andrew Adams:
As I understood it growing up, it's-- you are stretching the ligaments or whatever, whatever is holding in your muscles, right? You're stretching them so that they can, you know, gain more range of motion.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. The two things that most people were taught were... what you just said that the connective tissue actually elongates, or that you create-- I like this term-- micro tears in the musculature, and as they heal, they heal longer, and both are not true. They're just flat out not true. In fact, if you stretch the ligaments in your connective-- stretch your connective tissue around your joints, that's called an injury. If you tear your muscles, that is also called an injury. The thing that governs how flexible you are is actually your central nervous system. The very thing that determines how much power we are allowed to use out of our capacity in a punch or a kick. The very thing that determines our awareness, our response to getting hit, is the same thing that determines our range of motion and what is considered safe. Okay, now you may be listening to this going, "Jeremy that's not true," well, this is where I invite listeners to go check out the flexibility program, with eighteen, twenty-something references to scientific journals and forwards from doctors and athletic trainers that vetted this because I wasn't going to step into this realm, and tell people, "No, no, I'm sorry, what you were taught is wrong," without being able to back it up, and it's backed up, so go check that out. The central nervous system responds to a certain type of stimulus. Very well. Now, Andrew, if I asked you if you were to... let's take the example that you gave of the stretching machine and I think we've all seen those things, and actually, oh yeah, those can be used well. And you'll see how in a second. If I was to ask you to apply that same kind of methodology to getting stronger, what would that look like? If I say take-- go ahead.
Andrew Adams:
No, go ahead, finish your statement.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If you were going to take that approach getting in that machine, and just crank as far as you can and sit there for a while. If I wanted you to go to a gym and lift weights with that same method, what would that look like?
Andrew Adams:
I mean, using the same type of scenario, it would be like just holding weights up, just leaving them there, just--
Jeremy Lesniak:
Picking up a lot of weight.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And working with that weight for a long time.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Is that how that works?
Andrew Adams:
I mean, that's-- I don't know that-- I don't know that that works. I tried it.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Nobody does that. Right?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Whether we're talking about bodybuilding, or we're talking about running, or we're talking about flexibility. The thing that invites or creates the best adaptation is frequency. If you want to get really good in a form, do you just do it for eight hours? Or do you do it pieces over time? Right?
Andrew Adams:
Well, and I would think with lifting weights-wise, the thing that I've always understood that works is repetitions of-- I'll use simple numbers, like I start out lifting weights of ten pounds, and I do that for a while, and then I lift weights that are twelve pounds, then I lift weights that are fifteen pounds, like I gradually increase either the repetitions or the weight that I’m using or sometimes both, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. Now, the frequency part is very well established. We know that the body adapts
to frequency. There's a reason we go to martial arts class, an hour, hour and a half, two hours a class, not eight hours, one day a week or twenty hours, one day a month. Right? It doesn't work that way, it has to be in pieces. We know from bodybuilding because there's plenty of research on that front. That's how we create those adaptations. Now, the key is that the stimulus that we apply, whether it's flexibility, or whether it's weight, has to be in a safe range. If we take what most people do with flexibility, and we use your analogy, Andrew, of lifting weights you know ten, twelve, fifteen pounds, why not just pick up 150 pounds?
Andrew Adams:
Well, I mean because you might not be able to.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right, because we can't create the frequency that we need with 150 pounds.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Have you ever tried to stretch and taken it a little bit too far and your muscles go, "Err”.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, absolutely.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Most of us have had that. Oh, I didn't warm up properly.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And now, your range of motion is actually smaller than what it was when you start it. Why is that? It's not because your muscles went and got shorter or smaller or your connective tissue suddenly "shrank."
Andrew Adams:
Well my guess would be-- and this is legitimately a guess because you mentioned earlier that it has to do with the central nervous system. My guess is that's the answer.
Jeremy Lesniak:
The central nervous system detected that that stimulus was beyond the safe range of motion, and it got scared, and it locked everything down because if that's going to be an injurious action, it's going to keep you from doing it again. The body's really good at keeping us alive.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
And we need to condition it over time to relent to whatever stimulus that we're looking for. Flexibility being one of those things, go ahead.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, so here's the question: so right now, I'm not-- we'll say I'm not very flexible, which is that's a true statement, I'm not super flexible, if I was unconscious and somebody moved my body, obviously that's not mobility, that is flexibility, but would they be able to move my body with a larger range of motion than when I am alive-- not alive, when i am awake because my central nervous system is essentially turned off because I'm unconscious?
Jeremy Lesniak:
I can't speak to unconscious, my understanding-- now, I did not go deep on this. So this part, I will preface, may not be true, but in the brief time after somebody passes away, before rigor mortis sets in and things start to tighten up, my understanding is that cadavers can be moved in broader ranges of motion. I'm not hinging everything I'm saying on that, but your logic would apply. If you are passed out, I don't know because the central nervous system is still there, it's still awake. It's the brainstem and some other things, it's pretty fundamental to being alive. Okay.
Andrew Adams:
Okay.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So if we know that the central nervous system is going to fight back if you try to do too much at once, and we know that frequency is critical. We're talking about little bits over time. That's how flexibility happens. You have to work within a safe range of motion, often enough that works. Now, many of you know that I've coached fitness, I've coached cross fit, I've done things like that. One of the really common things that I saw among people-- and honestly this is where a lot of this research started-- this goes back years for me. People couldn't squat, they couldn't do a full squat. They couldn't-- you know, drop their butt down below their knees. Every one of those people worked in some job where they sat at a desk. What's the thing about sitting at a desk? All right angles, right?
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Your hips are at a right angle, your knees are at a right angle, and if you're trying to squat, you can't go beyond that because they've trained their body, eight hours a day, to be in that position. So I would give each of them exercises that they could do, just take a few minutes, a few times a day. Hip circles, primarily. You know, bring the knee up, bring it out, and within a month, they were all squatting lower, noticeably lower. They're like, "Wow this works." Why? Frequency, safe motion that the central nervous system wasn't going to fight back on. Now, if you can wrap your head around these things, let's apply that to the way most of us were taught to approach flexibility. Think about a center split. What do you have to do in order to not fall over in a center split? You have to use a lot of muscles and your hands to stay up.
Andrew Adams:
Yep.
Jeremy Lesniak: Have you ever gone into a center split and it's been fine, you know, you get into your range of motion, and you find that point and then you stay there, and it actually starts to become really uncomfortable?
Andrew Adams:
Well, Jeremy, I've never gone into a center split.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I don't mean a false-- I don't mean a full split, but to be in that position?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
You know what I'm talking
about?
Jeremy Lesniak:
And you get there, and you're like, "Oh okay, oh this isn't-- this-- I don't like this, I don't like this, and you stay there, and it gets really uncomfortable. That's your central nervous system saying, "You know, I was good with this for a minute, I'm not good with this now, I'm worried. I'm worried because you're using a lot of force to keep yourself up," and that just that's not a thing that happens in nature, show me an animal that does this. Showing an animal that's in a static position, under strain, for a long period of time. Doesn't happen, right? Because we do that as people. Okay. How am I doing with this?
Andrew Adams:
No-- I mean, this is making sense.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay, all right. For those of you watching or listening, Andrew and I talked briefly about how to approach this because I know that as I look at this, I look at it in kind of a scientific way because I've spent literally months digging in and reading research papers, and my ability to relate this--
Andrew Adams:
Convey that information--
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, is not-- it's not something that is easy for me right now, and that's why we wrote the program because it gave me the ability to really spend time with it, and have other people look at it. Instead of a center split, the movement that I advocate that's in the program is what I call an inverted split. Lay on your back, put your butt up against the wall, and let your legs open out.
Andrew Adams:
Okay, lay on your back, put your butt on the wall so your legs are up on the wall.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yep, you start there, and you let them open up and you use the friction between the wall and your heels to slow you down. Because if we think about the central nervous system, and the central nervous system's desire to adapt, or willingness to adapt, it has to determine that what you're doing is safe, correct?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah sure, makes sense, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
If it's not safe it's not going to
want to do it
and we can illustrate that by-- with the, you know, "Oh my leg just seized up," okay,
being relaxed-- being in a parasympathetic state-- I always get the two mixed up-- a parasympathetic state is advantageous for creating that adaptation. So by laying on your back, by being relaxed, letting the legs open, and hang out there, you can chill out and you can be there for, you know, a couple minutes if you want to and just breathe into it. It's a good thing. Okay.
Andrew Adams:
Interesting. Yeah, I mean, that makes sense. That it's not-- you're not going to have-- I mean, just from a weight standpoint, you know, I'm you know, I'm 260 pounds, if I'm standing up with my legs spread out, that's a lot of weight on pushing down on my legs. If I'm laying on my back with my legs spread apart, you know what, what do each of my legs weigh? You know man, twelve, twenty pounds maybe? Like yes, it's not nearly as much weight--
Jeremy Lesniak:
Your legs weigh a lot more than twenty pounds.
Andrew Adams:
I don't know.
Jeremy Lesniak:
They do. But yeah, it's less weight. And we can apply this idea to everything. If you're looking to become more flexible, to find a position that you can be in while you can relax and smile and breathe and make a small adaptation that you recur over time, the better off it's going to work. So when we go back to what you mentioned at the beginning, it's not that stretch machine that is really creating the adaptation, it's not the force, it's not how wide your legs are, it's the fact that you're doing it multiple times. Otherwise, you could sit down at that stretch machine, crank it out, get into that position, and you would always have that position, but you don't. You have to do it again and again and again and again and any flexibility program worth its salt, is telling you have to do these things time and time and time again. It's not the movement so much, It's not the intensity, it's the frequency.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So, start with frequency. Keep the intensity mild... and breathe. Now, of course I go a lot deeper and give you a whole program. A seven-- a six-week program in the flexibility-- in what we're calling "whistlekick flex." We're rebranding all the programs, but flex, our flexibility, mobility, range of motion, whatever-you-want-to-call-it-program, and it's available for free and you can go to whistlekickprograms.com and you can grab it and it's all there.
Andrew Adams:
Well, it's free but you gotta-- like you must have to sign up for something, right?
Jeremy Lesniak:
You don't even have to sign up.
Andrew Adams:
No, not even my email?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Not even your email. What Andrew's getting at, and I'll tell all of you, you know, my theory is that we're at a point now where marketers are being so fraudulent in everything they want you to sign up, they want your email address so they can bombard you, and I said, you know, let's test this, let's put out a great program, and let's make it completely free and see how many people are willing to try it with no barriers and hopefully some of them will try out one of our other programs, that's the goal. So that's why we did it that way and we put it all over the place.
Andrew Adams:
Excellent.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Okay. if you have questions, because I'm going to freely admit this was not the most coherent explanation, I've done of something, check out the program. It answers all the questions, it's laid out in a much more intelligent form, and I probably could have just sat here and read it, but that would be boring so I'm not gonna do that. Yeah, you know but I'm pretty passionate about this, you know, I like good information. I
like scientifically driven information, and if you're an instructor and you're listening to this stuff and you're like, "Oh Jeremy, that's not how I've always done it," well, let me ask you a question: How much more flexible are you now than you were a year ago?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey everybody, that episode ended a little abruptly. We were just about done, so Andrew and I decided to just leave it as is because just the way the recording software goes, it was going to take a while for what we had recorded to process. If you don't know, we actually record multiple episodes at once and then we cut up the video. I also want to apologize, you know, we're still dialing in some of the audio stuff, what I hear and what records isn't always exactly the same and we're working on it. Just like everything else we do. You work on it, you get better. So thank you to those of you who stick around and give us feedback and all of that. The heart of what we talked about today, of course all of it, really, is in the flex program. Go check it out it, truly is free, no sign ups or anything. So if you were watching or listening and you thought, "Oh come on, Jeremy, this is not what I'm used to from you." Go read the guide, check out the videos. It's all there. You have honestly no excuses. If you like what we do, thank you. Thanks for your support, say thanks for hanging out with us, for showing us some love, thanks for the reviews and grabbing books, thanks for telling friends about what we do, thanks for Patreon, thanks for all of it. If you want to hit me up, jeremy@whistlekick.com. Andrew's andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, and our social media is @whistlekick, everywhere you could imagine. Until next time, train hard, smile and have a great day.