Varying stretching tension
I have been doing the newbie routine for 1-2 months now.
When I started stretching, I would just pull and hold. No matter what direction I stretched, it always seemed the ligaments were the limiting factor, and the process of stretching felt like a slack steel cable being pulled taut.
About a week ago, instead of just routinely stretching, I really started to concentrate on what I was feeling and where I was feeling it, especially when getting close to a full stretch.
I found that I could stretch to the limit, then ease off the pressure slightly (allowing my stretch to retract say 1 mm), then again slowly put the pressure back on taking the stretch back out, then ease off again etc etc.
Suddenly I could feel that what I was thinking of as a “steel cable” was elastic, was pliable, there was give and take in it. I knew from reading Thunders that given time I could stretch these ligaments out, but it wasn’t until that moment that I *really* knew that the (damn steel cable) thing wasn’t made of steel.
Since discovering this, I have been doing it along with my normal pull and hold stretching. I am not sure if I am imagining it or not, but I think that if I can first get a bit of elasticity in the ligament (by doing the limit/ease pressure/limit cycle taking 1-2 cycles per second) then once I get to 10-20 seconds it feels as if the limit is further out.
I tried searching for information about this kind of stretching, but I am not sure what to call it (varying stretching, cycle stretching?)
Does anyone do this kind of stretching? It has definitely been a good discovery for my mindset, but is it a good thing physically to do?
