|
Full-Body Flexibility - Jay Blahnik
Full-Body Flexibility
Second Edition
by Jay Blahnik
NEW, 272 pages
Get other Flexibility and Stretching books here
About Full-Body Flexibility
Improve flexibility, balance, and strength in three steps! Only the Full-Body Flexibility system blends the best stretching methods from yoga, Pilates, martial arts, and sports training into stretching sequences for your every need.
In this updated edition, you’ll find 175 stretches and 23 routines that will help you take these steps:
- Strengthen muscles to support your body and maximize your entire range of motion.
- Enhance flexibility by challenging your muscles with multiple techniques.
- Balance muscles in opposing muscle groups on both sides of your body.
Use the book's step-by-step instruction and detailed full-color photo sequences to enhance your body’s natural movement, reduce muscular tension, strengthen joints, improve posture, and take your athletic performance to new heights.
Whether you’re seeking to improve overall fitness or simply searching for a more effective way to stretch, Full-Body Flexibility is your guide for staying active, healthy, pain free, and injury free.
About Jay Blahnik
Jay Blahnik is recognized as one of the premier fitness professionals in the industry and has over 25 years of teaching and training experience. As a fitness educator and keynote speaker, he has traveled to over 30 countries and is known for his insightful viewpoints on engaging and motivating consumers.
Jay was chosen by Shape magazine as one of the top fitness instructors in the world, andMen’s Health listed him as having one of the top 10 workouts of all time. He is the youngest person ever to receive both the IDEA Fitness Instructor of the Year Award and IDEA’s FitnessIndustry Icons and Innovators title. He was also chosen as Can-Fit-Pro’s International Presenter of the Year in 2005.
He has starred in over 30 award-winning exercise videos and has designed, created, and choreographed some of the best-selling exercise videos of all time for other fitness professionals and celebrities.
Jay has been featured as a fitness expert in over 200 magazines across the globe, and his weekly and monthly fitness columns in the Los Angeles Times and on MSNBC.com are read by millions of people each year. He has served as an editorial advisory board member for the American Council on Exercise (ACE) and is the group exercise spokesperson for IDEA Health and Fitness Association.
Jay is a consultant and program developer for Nike, Nautilus, Bowflex, Schwinn, Stairmaster, BOSU, and Indo-Row. He resides in Laguna Beach, California.
Reviews
“Full-Body Flexibility is flawless and on the mark. Jay’s methodology is simple and offers an exercise instruction formula that is seamless, exciting, fun, and useful to both fitness professionals and consumers!”
Douglas S. Brooks, MS -- Author of Your Personal Trainer, BOSU Programming and Master Trainer Team Director, RealRyder Director of Programming and Education
“As a true visionary, Jay Blahnik brings stretching into the 21st century. His book Full-Body Flexibility takes a holistic approach to training that is both scientifically sound and easy to apply.”
Keli Roberts -- IDEA International Instructor of the Year
"This is a smart, straightforward approach to stretching for flexibility, strength, and injury prevention.”
Lindsey Emery -- Fitness Magazine Fitness Editor
About Stretching
Stretching is a form of physical exercise in which a specific skeletal muscle (or muscle group) is deliberately elongated to its fullest length (often by abduction from the torso) in order to improve the muscle's felt elasticity and reaffirm comfortable muscle tone. The result is a feeling of increased muscle control, flexibility and range of motion. Stretching is also used therapeutically to alleviate cramps.
Stretching, in its most basic form, is a natural and instinctive activity; it is performed by many animals including humans. It can be accompanied by yawning. Stretching often occurs instinctively after waking from sleep, after long periods of inactivity, or after exiting confined spaces and areas.
Many athletes stretch deliberately before or after exercise in order to increase performance and reduce injury.
A study done by LaRoche and Connolly was designed to see whether stretching reduces frequency of sports-related injuries and increases individual performance. The study, conducted over a four-week period, involved male participants between the ages of eighteen and sixty who were not actively training. Participants were randomly assigned to three different stretching groups which included ballistic, static, and control groups. The study used a custom-built device to test the individual’s maximal hamstring resistance.
To see what stretching method worked best, participants first needed to experience delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS). This was done by having individuals use a hamstring curl machine, doing three sets of fifteen repetitions with a one-minute break between sets. Stretching was done before and after exercise, only three days a week for a four-week period. Warm ups were a mandatory requirement before stretching.
The results of the study found that both ballistic and static stretching yielded a large increase in individual range of motion (ROM). This is thought to be from an increase in stretch tolerance as opposed to actual muscle elongation. The study also found that ballistic stretching seemed to have the same effects as static stretching without any perceived negative effects. Although there was an increased range of motion due to stretching, there was no change in DOMS or muscle soreness (LaRoche and Connolly 1000-1007).
Full-Body Flexibility
| 
