fbpx

Stretching & Flexibility, 2nd edition by Kit Laughlin

Stretching & Flexibility will change your way of thinking about flexibility and will certainly improve the way you go about achieving it. Everyone will find exercises to suit his or her body type and level of flexibility. The revised 2nd edition has new hamstring and hip flexor exercises.

  • 96 stretching exercises, plus warm-up movements
  • Exercises presented from easy to hard
  • Full explanations, including what to do in the exercise and how to get in and out of the positions
  • Exercises shown in partner and solo versions
  • Over 700 photographs, showing all the essential details
  • Much more (see below)

What you will learn...

Stretching & Flexibility, the book

In Stretching & Flexibility, you will find effective exercises for all the usual places people want to stretch: hips, hamstrings and legs-apart movements. In addition, however, you will find hand, wrist and forearm exercises, a full range of neck and shoulder exercises (including the hard-to-stretch rotator cuff pairs) and a variety of ankle and feet exercises. There are even exercises to help you spread your toes and strengthen your arches!

As well, you will find rotation and backward-bending exercises, sideways-bending movements and a large number of unique warm-ups too. There is an exercise for every muscle of the body, and the associated tendons, ligaments and fascia.

The book is organised into 16 lessons and begins with very easy-to-do movements. Gradually, the subsequent lessons build on these basic ‘functional units of flexibility’, and in time you will find yourself being able to do the more difficult stretches.

There is an unique “Unnumbered Lesson” midway through the book, full of ‘poses between poses’—all the positions and places not stretched i any conventional system. We call this the “rolling around the floor’ lesson, and is my personal favourite. This lesson can be used to assess your progress, and to get a clearer idea of which parts of the body to prioritise next.

The Stretch Therapy system is a combination of three elements: we use the Contract–Relax (C–R) approach in a framework of partial and complete poses, many of which are partner-based. It is a rapidly evolving form being constantly tested and reassessed against two criteria: is it safe? and does it work? 

Flexibility and strength are critical in life—for all of us, at all ages—and not just for the professional or amateur athlete. Of the two, flexibility is the more important, in my experience.

Kit’s new book will change your way of thinking about flexibility and will certainly improve the way you go about achieving it… I am certain that this book will revolutionise the way we go about becoming more supple.

Greg Chappell, MBE – former Australian Test Cricket Captain

From the foreword to the first edition (1999)

>