An 18 Month Update On My Daily Stretch Routine (Time Well Spent, Or?…)

Back in August of 2023 off the back of Paul Twyman’s UK handstand workshop, I embarked on a daily practice – where you do a self-designed routine aimed at freeing up tight joints/ranges and with optional light skill work to go with it.

I have written about this a few times previously as well, so have a quick read if it interests you to compare perspectives now vs then. (READ THIS: A ‘Daily Practice’ – Genius Or Gimmick?)

Basically, I wanted to try the little and often approach compared to my heavier approaches in the past. Where I used very heavy strength training methods in order to successfully achieve highly sought after moves such as front splits, side splits & pancake etc. This approach works well especially for naturally tighter adult males such as myself.

(For background/context, feel free to read either of these if you’re interested in the heavier/more intense methods I mean: How I Achieved A Flat Front Split As An Adult Male, How I Achieved The MIDDLE SPLITS As An Adult Male)

The downside of this approach though, is it’s incredibly taxing and can impede your overall recovery significantly. Which doesn’t matter if all you care for is flexibility development, but if you’re seeking other skills/strengths concurrently, you’ll struggle to balance it all and progress it.

Another issue I found with this method is your cold ranges always seem to be extremely locked up, unless you’re warm and/or using intense methods to almost force the range open; you pretty much become that person who has all the pictures online, yet when people meet you in real life, you have average to below average flexibility and they have to truly ask if your photos are photo-shopped!

This did my head in after a while & I knew I had to try a different approach.

Hence my journey with Paul’s daily practice: a simple 30-60 second visit of a selection of stretches of your choice, where you don’t necessarily look to gain range, especially at first, but rather make the positions feel more comfortable & accessible in ‘all weathers’; if you’re sore from something over the last few days, if it’s early morning or you just feel tight, regardless, you just do the routine.

It’s very low on the taxation scale and everybody has 10-20 minutes per day, and if you don’t you just don’t want it enough. Plain and simple.

Fast-forwarding to now, virtually 18 months since starting this approach I can proudly say I’ve hardly missed a day in this lengthy timeframe. Yep, that’s hardcore I know, but I was that dedicated to the experiment – and the fact I still do it to this day gives some clue as to how effective it is and has been…

The ’18 Month Rule’

I remember first hearing this when I was a student at Emmet Louis’ Modern Methods Of Mobility workshop in London, way back in 2017 now.

Emmet said if you reframe your expectations into longer time scales (18 months was his exact example), you will never be disappointed when you re-compare your ranges.

Back then I remember thinking it was a LONG period of time and you could sense the feeling of ‘really, 18 months?! I don’t mind putting in 3 months but 18? Fuck!’, among the group.

Interestingly, I have found this to be pretty accurate in my adventures to splits via the heavier methods mentioned earlier, as well as with many online and in-person clients I’ve worked with for flexibility.

But how true does it ring when it comes to an evolving ‘gentle’ daily practice? -and a daily practice that’s mostly (at least in the early days) passive in nature, where passive flexibility work/stretching is so frowned upon & bastardised as of late??

My current thoughts with regards to static stretching/passive flexibility work are: it’s a great way to get in tune with your body, and feel the areas you’re trying to open up. You have to clear out tension for quite a while and how long depends how long you’ve been without using, or accessing the ranges you now want to. It’s a cute idea that we can all just strength train hard once per week through length, and reverse 40 years of chronic sitting & muscle imbalances but it’s an idea that doesn’t work in the real world.

Does that one hour session really offset the remaining 167 hours of the week, especially if those hours are spent in positions that undo the hard flexibility work?

We both know the real answer.

Static stretching is a great starting point before slowly introducing more intense methods.

It’s a no brainer for me.

Anyhow, even more interestingly, over the last 2-3 months or so I’ve seen a drastic level up in my ranges across the stretches I do. In case you’re not sure what they are, I’ll outline the patterns I work on here but keep in mind I started with a simple single stretch per pattern, then slowly added variety to where I have a three day rotation (more or less) now…

• Forward fold/hamstring flexibility (could be single leg or double leg)
• Pancake flexibility (could be seated or standing)
• External hip rotation flexibility (90/90, elevated pigeon, various floor cross-legged sitting drills etc)
• Tailors pose/butterfly pose
• A resting squat position (starting wider & with the feet more turned out, gradually narrowing & straightening the stance with time)
• Something for the hip flexors/quads (couch stretch variations or reclined hero pose)
• Shoulder flexion/overhead range/thoracic extension
• Shoulder extension (seated, active, weight assisted etc)
• Elbow flexion/long head of the tricep (butcher’s block styles, single side elbow flexion stretches etc for muscle up proficiency/elbow flexion tolerance)

Then a little further down the road I added in something for shoulder internal rotation, in the form of eagle hangs, sleeper stretches & behind the back drills, mainly due to the strong carryover from internal rotation to shoulder flexion (look for it yourself, you’ll see it), particularly where this is my naturally weakest range.

Minimum 30 seconds per stretch, maximum 60. Sometimes 45. They can be done at any time of day but I gradually transitioned over to doing it more often than not, in the mornings before I had to go out and teach/coach, as I found this loosened me up so well & made me move so much better. It then became a habit that stuck.

The rotation of drills slowly came in to make things more tolerable mentally and for some variety. The variety keeps things new and allows you to experiment and compare different drills for the same movement pattern. Some patterns have stayed with the singular drill (butterfly/tailor’s pose for example) but the protocol may vary – contract/relax/PNF, dynamic reps with an end range hold, pulses/ballistics etc. Although I really didn’t do much of this until well into the 6-9 month mark at least.

It’s also worth noting you don’t have to do as much as I listed here. You could do less if you have more specific priorities or weaknesses, tighter time restrictions or goals that differ to mine. I get more into tailoring these practices

The Level Up

On so many of these postures when starting out, I would display nowhere near ‘ideal’ range or ‘touchdown’ if you will. For example, I could only dream of a relatively cold and flat to the floor butterfly/tailor’s pose. I would use the full 60 seconds and STILL have a notable gap between my outer calves/knees and the ground.

The pancake was similar: quite often I wouldn’t even get a full forehead or chin down at the 60 second mark. Sometimes I would but on average I wouldn’t.

A cold palms to floor pike/forward fold was also another dream at first, as there would always be that annoying kink at the knee where the upper calves just weren’t letting go.

Now though, as of the last 2 months or so, within 30 seconds of entering the poses mentioned above, I have had a constant touchdown. And I mean constant. 7 days per week, regardless of circumstance. That’s a chin to floor pancake, a knees to floor butterfly/tailor pose & a palms flat standing pike with fully extended knees, whenever I want it.

An undeniable change and drastic level up!

Which has now meant I only do a max of 30 seconds per stretch now on most things, and that’s all I need to maintain or reach my range. I guess this is my reward for all my previous time, hard work, consistency & dedication?

You always hear people saying they don’t need much to maintain their hard-worked-for flexibility, and I was always sceptical of this claim, especially where I have had full splits both ways but always struggled to access them with less effort. I was always wondering when my time for ease would come. Then again, looking back I can see I never really owned them positions anyway, and this is the magic of a daily routine that’s ongoing; something just part of your day…slowly you own positions better with time and who knows what results you could get, personally?

From my own empirical experience, the man Mr Emmet Louis is absolutely right: you’ll never be disappointed with your results if you assess in 18 month blocks. The question is though: could you stick it out that long?

The time will pass anyway so you may as well start now.