Weekly Inquiry: Feb 9

Hi All,

Well it’s safe to say that I am not super flexible. I have been doing the routine promoted by Anna McNulty, a self taught contortionist and the 2023 top Canadian Youtube creator (see below), and I am very far away from her level. Ya I know it’s not the most scientifically rigorous training program but it worked for my partner. Anyways, after a week of doing the routine it has become clear that my initial goals were somewhat… ambitious. I am going to have to adjust my objective and tweak the progress tracking a bit. Unfortunately, doing the splits is probably not going to happen by the end of the semester – Jean Claude Van Damme would not be proud.

Instead of doing the splits I am going to use the V sit-and-reach flexibility test. It isn’t quite as reliable as the official sit-and-reach test but it doesn’t require any special equipment and is easy to perform at home. The link below is a decent overview but basically you sit with your legs about 12 inches apart straight in front of you and try to reach forward along the ground as far as you can go. A measuring tape is placed with the 15 inch mark at your heels. Very flexible people can reach well beyond the 15 inch mark while people like myself might struggle to reach their heels. As of this week, my baseline is ~14 inches. This is considered slightly below average for my age. I did the test again after performing the stretching routine and was able to get it up to just over 15 inches so maaaaaybe I was being a little hard on myself earlier. It’s going to be a little slower than I initially anticipated but hopefully I can increase this a little bit every week. I’m going to do some extra research and see if there is anything else besides stretching that can contribute to flexibility. I’ve heard that making sure you are fully hydrated can have a significant impact on flexibility. More on that next week…

Click the link to find out more about the V sit-and-reach test: Measuring Flexibility