Flexibility is Built Before it’s Felt

The process of becoming more flexible often feels like the opposite of what you expect. Just like strength training, the stimulus that creates adaptation temporarily makes you feel worse before you feel better.

After a strength workout, you generally don't feel stronger right away. You actually feel weaker. Your body then adapts to that stimulus by getting stronger in the long term. 

With flexibility work, this remains the same. Not only acutely after a proper flexibility workout will you feel stiffer that day and probably the day after due to soreness, but also over the course of a training block.

This is where the gold lies. Even though you may feel stiffer week to week, you should still stick to the plan. Realize that feelings of stiffness don't correlate with your actual range of motion development. You can be gaining flexibility weekly, but still feel stiffer than you did before you started intense stretching.

The reasons for stiffness are due to fatigue and inflammation build up over the course of a training cycle. When you perform high volumes of stretching (10+ sets per week), especially with splits training, you create a significant training stimulus that your joints and connective tissues need time to recover from. Loaded stretching and end range strength workout can make your joints more resilient, but you have to stress them adequately and long enough to finally experience positive results. 

People want COLD flexibility changes. Being able to display their end range without a warm up. People are disappointed when they don't notice their cold flexibility increasing even if it still is trending positively during your planned stretching sessions. 

The thing is, you don't start to experience noticeable flexibility changes, and decreased total body stiffness until you take a long enough break from it to let the fatigue and inflammation in the joints die down. Then you can express what you've been building this whole time.

This is where deload weeks can be really useful when training flexibility. Every 6-12 weeks or so (depending on total volume) take a light week or two where you reduce volume of stretching by 50-60%. You can maintain some intensity, but do not try to push for more range this week. Just go through the motions to keep your nervous system accustomed to the movements. 

Odds are by the end of the week, your joints will feel amazing! Even better if you take two light weeks. The gains you've been working so hard for will finally shine through and you may start to notice those cold flexibility changes. Just make sure during the deload week you're not increasing the intensity of your other training to make up for the reduced stretching volume. Meaning don't add extra sets to your heavy squats or run extra miles. Use this week to let your entire body recover. 

The goal of a deload isn’t to gain flexibility. It’s to reveal the flexibility you’ve already built.

Here's the thing. Don't just take a light week when you start to feel sore or more stiff. In fact, if you're newer to flexibility training, you you can go much longer without needing a deload.   

When you’re experiencing the normal stiffness and fatigue that accompany productive flexibility training—and your range of motion is still progressing—that isn’t necessarily a sign to back off. In many cases, it’s simply the accumulated training stress that precedes adaptation. This means things are working. The nervous system is realizing the joints are being taken to their end range weekly and something needs to change. Adaptation is not a comfortable process. People think flexibility training is this restorative modality to make you feel less sore and stiff. Nope! Not if you are stretching to actually get flexible 

Train hard, stretch hard, and give it time. Keep pushing even if you are feeling achy. Only when your range of motion stops progressing or starts to backtrack over the course of a few weeks you should take a light week or even a 2-3 week microcycle of lighter stretching to let the inflammation die down so you can push intensity again. Just because you feel off one session doesn't mean it's time to take the foot off the gas. And just because you notice your range of motion decreasing doesn't mean you're getting less flexible. You're still progressing, the fatigue is just masking the adaptation happening behind the scenes. Over time you'll be able to plan out your deload weeks so you can stay ahead of the declines in range of motion. 

I will deload every 4 weeks if I'm in a really intense phase of training where I'm pushing the limits of my range of motion (eccentrics, weighted yielding iso's) weekly with 2-3 weekly sessions. I only train like this a few months out of the year.

But most of the time I'll wait till about 8 weeks if I’m more conservative with my flexibility training. Meaning I’m staying within 80-90% of my max when I stretch and just building tolerance and time under tension in these zones. 

In summary, we will feel more flexible directly after training it but most likely stiffen back up acutely. Only after a period of rest, will we start to experience the changes that are being made. But you have to earn that rest.

Countless times I've experienced increased flexibility from stopping stretching. 

If the joints are happy, so are the muscles. Happy muscles now want to lengthen. Now you're more flexible and ready to start the process all over again.

Train → accumulate fatigue → deload → express gains → repeat

Want help programming flexibility? Reach out for online coaching 1-1 with me