BEYOND STRETCHING:
RUSSIAN FLEXIBILITY BREAKTHROUGHS
By Pavel Tsatsouline
From: Ali
Let me start with my conclusion: if you are
interested in flexibility, you want this book. Buy it. Now, on with the review.
In 'Beyond Stretching: Russian Flexibility
Breakthroughs' Pavel Tstatsouline gets right to the nitty gritty. He presents eleven
truisms of the sort that Western sports authorities are always parroting, (e.g., 'You have
to elongate your muscles, tendons, and ligaments in order to become flexible' and 'You
will get injured if you don't warm up and stretch before exercise') and then states that
every one of them is wrong. The gauntlet is thrown. By the time you finish reading this
book, you will have to give a point to Mother Russia.
Part One is called 'Nerd Stuff.' This is the
muscle physiology chapter. As you might guess from the humorous chapter title, it's not
difficult, it doesn't require a degree in physiology, and yes, it's even pretty funny at
times. Pavel explains that the key to flexibility has nothing to do with elongating
anything, but with resetting nervous system response to being stretched. If you can put a
leg up on a table at ninety degrees to the leg on which you are standing, there is nothing
preventing you from doing the splits, he says. That is, there are no muscles connecting
one leg to the other, so if you can do this with each leg it's obvious that everything is
plenty 'long' enough to do it with both. Resetting the nervous system response is key. In
fact, stretching the muscles and connective tissue can cause scarring-a non-pliable
'lengthening.' Not good. So this book teaches nervous system reeducation to allow greater
range or motion.
The book goes on to explain the difference between
dynamic and static flexibility. (Personally, I think we should use entirely different
words for the two, but we seem stuck with 'flexibility' for now). Pavel further debunks
various myths about ballistic stretching. Are there risks? Yes, but less than the risk of
NOT doing it and then playing sports, or martial arts. '[I]f you want to play it really
safe, stick to Trivial Pursuit' he advises. The book teaches the mechanics of safe
(RELATIVELY safe) ballistic stretching. The difference between flexibility for dropping
into a split and flexibility for throwing a high kick with great force (strength at the
end of the movement) are radically different things. Pavel explains how to train for both.
Pavel explains how conventional wisdom on warm-ups
s all wrong. Though he doesn't call what he does warming up, it is a warm up of sorts.
Here his ideas on weight-training 'warm-ups' comport with much of what we learn from
'Hardgainer' and 'HIT' circles-ramp up to top weights pretty quickly. Regarding
stretching, he does not advise a 'cardio' warm-up but gives joint flexions and rotations
before ballistic stretches.
The next section of the physiology chapter
explains PNF and STI (shutdown threshold isometric) stretching, which not only are the
fastest methods for reaching higher ranges of flexibility, but increase strength at the
fully stretched range as well. This is necessary for safety and for power at the end of
dynamic movements (again, such as high kicks). The stretch reflex is meant to keep us
safe, that is not extend muscles past a point that they're 'comfortable.' So if you
increase this range, you better be strong at the end of that range in order deal with
whatever force is stretching you there. Further, this is part of the neural reeducation
process-your nervous system is 'willing' to let you go further if it 'knows' you're strong
at that range and can pull yourself back to a non-stretched position. STI is similar to
PNF, but with added resistance for reaching the further extremes or speeding progress to
them. It also looks to be very painful. Fortunately, you don't have to stay in pain for
too long at once!
There is more in this section, such as various
ways to increase strength more quickly, how the mobility (joint rotations, mostly) help
keep you healthy, a discussion of assessment of how much flexibility is actually necessary
or helpful for an individual.
Part Two of the book explains the 'How' in general
terms of the dynamic stretches, the PNF and the STI stretches, and 'pneumomuscular'
stretching, which is a method of breathing and tensing/relaxing into stretches more
completely. It also touches on a few other topics (such as plyometrics and their relation
to other strength training, 'shakeout' exercises for martial artists to increase
connective tissue strength, injury, and back pain). This chapter goes very quickly, but
it's vital to read carefully in order to understand how to properly follow the drills
illustrated in the next section.
Part Three: Here's what you've been preparing for:
illustrations and descriptions of the actual exercises. It goes from the mobility
exercises to the dynamic stretches and finally to PNF and STI stretches. There's no need
to summarize this section-if you've read up to this point, it's just that this is the
'exercise menu.' It's clear you don't need to do all of these exercises in one workout, or
even EVER, but picking out those that will be most useful to you is a very simple matter.
For fighters the mobility drills and dynamic stretches will ALL be important. They won't
take too long to do. The PNF/STI stretches have several 'basic' exercises as well as
dozens of others to choose from depending on your specific activity and own pre-existing
flexibility and strength levels. There are sixty exercises altogether shown in photos and
with more or less detailed explanations. Most of them are not complicated, but make
certain you read the descriptions before going doing one of them (and make sure you read
the first two parts of the book so you understand how to do ANY of them, too).
Members of forum have asked about the difference
between this book and another Eastern Sports Science book, Thomas Kurz' 'Stretching
Scientifically.' While there are similarities in approach, there are a few differences,
too. Tsatsouline, unlike Kurz, has no use whatsoever for relaxed, passive stretching.
Other than this, some of the specific stretches shown are different. Tsatsouline has many
MORE stretches, shows the joint mobility drills, covers STI (which Kurz doesn't), and in
general has much more detail on the stretches and on the relationship of flexibility and
strength training.
The book is not quite perfect. Some of the
important details are there, but not sufficiently 'red-flagged' for my tastes. Perhaps
this is just the author respecting his readers enough to think they'll get it the first
time. I'd prefer more emphasis at a couple of points-but this is a nit-pick. Just read
carefully and it's all in there. I'd also like some more 'bullet-point' type summarization
of the principles in Part One to double-check before looking at the exercises themselves,
but again this is a simple matter: read the whole book carefully before beginning. It's
not too long. Again, those are nit-picks. The bottomline:
This book is more expensive than some competing
books, perhaps, but is easily (EASILY) the single best book on flexibility training I've
seen. I've seen a lot of them, too.
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